Observations placeholder
Empedocles - On reincarnation
Identifier
021250
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
A description of the experience
For I was once already boy and girl,
Thicket and bird, and mute fish in the waves.
All things doth Nature change, enwrapping souls
In unfamiliar tunics of the flesh.
The worthiest dwellings for the souls of men,
When 'tis their lot to live in form of brutes,
Are tawny lions, those great beasts that sleep
Couched on the black earth up the mountainside
But when in forms of beautiful plumed trees
They live, the bays are worthiest for souls.