Book 2
11
Thereupon the garlands fell from us of their own accord, leaving us free, and we were led into the city, and to the banquet-hall of the blest. The city itself is all of gold, but the wall around it is of emerald. There were seven gates, each a single piece of cinnamon. But the streets of the city and the ground within the walls were ivory. The temples of all the gods were built of beryll stone, and the great altars in them, on which hecatombs are offered, are single amethysts. Around the city flows a river of the sweetest unguents, fifty yards broad and twenty-five deep, so that one may swim in it pleasantly. The baths of this country are great buildings of crystal filled with the fragrance of burning cinnamon. But, instead of water, there is warm dew in the pools.
12
For garments the people wear delicate purple spiders' webs. They themselves have no bodies; they are impalpable and fleshless, and present to the eye nothing but a shape, a contour. But although they are thus disembodied, they yet have consistency, move, reason, and utter speech. In fact, it is just as though their naked souls were walking about, wearing the likeness of their bodies. At any rate, unless you should lay hold of one of them, you would not detect that what your eye rested on was incorporeal. They are like shadows, except that they are upright and not dark. No one grows old; each remains at the age he had when he came. Nor is there any night with them, or very bright day either, for the light that pervades the land is like that white radiance of dawn before the sun has risen. Moreover, they know only one time of year, for it is always spring there, and the south wind is the only one that blows.
