She waited a moment and then said: Give me leave to invent a fanciful simile in order to illustrate the matter before us: even though that which I suppose may be outside the range of possibility. Grant it possible, then, in the art of painting not only to mix opposite colours, as painters are always doing, to represent a particular tint73    tint, μορφῆς. Certainly in earlier Greek μορφὴ is strictly used of “form,” “shape” (or the beauty of it) only, and colours cannot be said to be mixed in imitation of form. It seems we have here a late use of μορφὴ as = “outward appearance”; so that we may even speak of the μορφὴ of a colour, or combinations of colours. So (214 A) the painter “works up (on his palette) a particular tint of colour” (μορφὴν). Here it is the particular hue, in person or picture, which it is desired to imitate. Akin to this question is that of the proper translation of πρὸς τὴν ὁμοιότητα τοῦ προκειμένου, which Sifanus and Krabinger translate “ad similitudinem argumenti,” and which may either mean (1) “to make the analogy to the subject matter of our question as perfect as possible,” i.e. as a parenthesis, or (2) “in imitation of the thing or colour (lying before the painter) to be copied.” The last seems preferable (“to form the given tint”)., but also to separate again this mixture and to restore to each of the colours its natural dye. If then white, or black, or red, or golden colour, or any other colour that has been mixed to form the given tint, were to be again separated from that union with another and remain by itself, we suppose that our artist will none the less remember the actual nature of that colour, and that in no case will he show forgetfulness, either of the red, for instance, or the black, if after having become quite a different colour by composition with each other they each return to their natural dye. We suppose, I say, that our artist remembers the manner of the mutual blending of these colours, and so knows what sort of colour was mixed with a given colour and what sort of colour was the result, and how, the other colour being ejected from the composition, (the original colour) in consequence of such release resumed its own peculiar hue; and, supposing it were required to produce the same result again by composition, the process will be all the easier from having been already practised in his previous work. Now, if reason can see any analogy in this simile, we must search the matter in hand by its light. Let the soul stand for this Art of the painter74    γραφικῆς τέχνης.; and let the natural atoms stand for the colours of his art; and let the mixture of that tint compounded of the various dyes, and the return of these to their native state (which we have been allowed to assume), represent respectively the concourse, and the separation of the atoms. Then, as we assume in the simile that the painter’s Art tells him the actual dye of each colour, when it has returned after mixing to its proper hue, so that he has an exact knowledge of the red, and of the black, and of any other colour that went to form the required tint by a specific way of uniting with another kind—a knowledge which includes its appearance both in the mixture, and now when it is in its natural state, and in the future again, supposing all the colours were mixed over again in like fashion—so, we assert, does the soul know the natural peculiarities of those atoms whose concourse makes the frame of the body in which it has itself grown, even after the scattering of those atoms. However far from each other their natural propensity and their inherent forces of repulsion urge them, and debar each from mingling with its opposite, none the less will the soul be near each by its power of recognition, and will persistently cling to the familiar atoms, until their concourse after this division again takes place in the same way, for that fresh formation of the dissolved body which will properly be, and be called, resurrection.

_Μ. Ἡ δὲ μικρὸν ἐπισχοῦσα, Δεδόσθω μοι, φησὶ, κατ' ἐξουσίαν πλάσαι τινὰ λόγον ἐν ὑποδείγματι, πρὸς τὴν τοῦ προκειμένου σαφήνειαν, κἂν ἕξω τοῦ δυνατοῦ δοκῇ τὸ λεγόμενον. Δεδόσθω γὰρ δυνατὸν εἶναι τῇ τοῦ ζωγράφου τέχνῃ, μὴ μόνον μιγνύειν ἐξ ἐναντίου τὰ χρώματα, καθὼς ἔθος ποιεῖν αὐτοῖς πρὸς τὴν τῆς μορφῆς ὁμοιότητα, ἀλλὰ καὶ διακρίνειν τὰ μεμιγμένα, καὶ τὴν κατὰ φύσιν πάλιν ἑκάστῳ τῶν χρωμάτων ἀποδιδόναι βαφήν. Οὐκοῦν τὸ λευκὸν, καὶ τὸ μέλαν, ἢ τὸ ἐρυθρὸν, καὶ τὸ χρυσοειδὲς, ἢ εἴ τις ἄλλη βαφὴ πρὸς τὴν ὁμοιότητα τοῦ προκειμένου συγκρίνεται, εἰ πάλιν ἀποκριθείη τῆς πρὸς ἕτερον μίξεως, καὶ ἐφ' ἑτέρου γένοιτο, οὐδὲν ἧττον γινώσκεσθαι ὑπὸ τοῦ τεχνίτου φαμὲν αὐτὸ τὸ εἶδος τοῦ χρώματος, καὶ μὴ μίαν ἐγγίνεσθαι λήθην αὐτῷ, μήτε τοῦ ἐρυθροῦ μήτε τοῦ μέλανος, εἰ ἑτερόχρωα κατὰ τὴν τοῦ πρὸς ἄλληλα μίξιν γινόμενα, πάλιν εἰς τὴν κατὰ φύσιν ἐπανέλθῃ βαφήν: μεμνημένου δὲ τοῦ τρόπου τῆς πρὸς ἄλληλα τῶν χρωμάτων συγκράσεως: εἰδέναι ποῖον ἔν τινι γινόμενον οἷον ἀπειργάσατο χρῶμα, καὶ ὅπως ἐκβληθέντος ἐκ τοῦ ἀπολυθῆναι τοῦ ἑτέρου πάλιν εἰς τὸ οἰκεῖον ἐπανέδραμεν ἄνθος, καὶ εἰ πάλιν δέοι διὰ τῆς μίξεως τὸ ἶσον ἐργάσασθαι, ἀπονωτέρα ἔσται αὐτῷ ἡ κατασκευὴ ἐν τῇ προλαβούσῃ δημιουργίᾳ μελετηθεῖσα. Εἰ δέ τι ἀκόλουθον ἐν τῷ ὑποδείγματι, φησὶν, ὁ λόγος ἔχει, ἐξεταστέον ἤδη ἡμῖν αὐτὸ τὸ προκείμενον. Ἀντὶ γὰρ τῆς γραφικῆς τέχνης ἡ τῶν στοιχείων νοείσθω φύσις, ἡ δὲ μίξις τῆς ποικίλης τῶν ἑτεροχροούντων βαφῆς, καὶ πάλιν ἡ δοθεῖσα ἡμῖν καθ' ὑπόθεσιν εἰς τὰ οἰκεῖα τούτων ἐπάνοδος, τὴν συνδρομήν τε καὶ διάστασιν τῶν στοιχείων ὑπογραφέτω. Ὥσπερ οὖν φαμεν ἐν τῷ ὑποδείγματι μὴ ἀγνοεῖν τὴν βαφὴν τοῦ χρώματος τὸν τεχνίτην, μετὰ μίξιν πάλιν εἰς τὸ οἰκεῖον ἄνθος ἐπανελθοῦσαν, ἀλλ' ἐπιγινώσκειν τό τε ἐρυθρὸν καὶ τὸ μέλαν, καὶ εἴ τι ἕτερον διὰ τῆς ποιᾶς πρὸς τὸ ἑτερογενὲς κοινωνίας τὴν μορφὴν ἀπειργάσατο, οἷον μὲν ἐν τῇ μίξει, οἷον καὶ νῦν ἐστιν ἐν τῷ κατὰ τὴν φύσιν γινομένῳ: οἷον δὲ πάλιν ἔσται, εἰ ὁμοιοτρόπως αὖθις ἀλλήλοις ἀναμιχθείη τὰ χρώματα: οὕτως εἰδέναι τὴν ψυχὴν τῶν συνδραμόντων στοιχείων πρὸς τὴν τοῦ σώματος κατασκευὴν, ᾧ ἐνεφύη, καὶ μετὰ τὴν διάλυσιν αὐτῶν τὴν φυσικὴν ἰδιότητα. Κἂν πόῤῥωθεν ἀπ' ἀλλήλων αὐτὰ ἡ φύσις ἀφέλκῃ διὰ τὰς ἐγκειμένας ἐναντιότητας, ἕκαστον αὐτῶν τῆς πρὸς τὸ ἐναντίον ἐπιμιξίας ἀπείργουσα, οὐδὲν ἧττον παρ' ἑκάστῳ ἔσται τῇ γνωστικῇ δυνάμει τοῦ οἰκείου ἐφαπτομένη, καὶ παραμένουσα ἕως ἂν εἰς ταὐτὸ πάλιν ἡ τῶν διεστώτων γένηται συνδρομὴ πρὸς τὴν τοῦ διαλυθέντος ἀναστοιχείωσιν, ὅπερ ἀνάστασις κυρίως καὶ ἔσται καὶ ὀνομάζεται.