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Come, dismissing this topic, let us go up to Heaven itself, soaring up poet-fashion by the same route as Homer and Hesiod, and let us see how they have arranged things on high. That it is bronze on the outside we learned from Homer, who anticipated us in saying so. But when one climbs over the edge, puts up one’s head a little way into the world above, and really gets up on the “back,”Plato, Phaedrus247 B. Cf. p. 147. the light is brighter, the sun is clearer, the stars are shinier, it is day everywhere, and the ground is of gold. As you go in, the Hours live in the first house, for they are the warders of the gate; then come Iris and Hermes, who are attendants and messengers of Zeus; next, there is the smithy of Hephaestus, filled with works of art of every kind, and after that, the houses of the gods and the palace of Zeus, all very handsomely built by Hephaestus.
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“The gods, assembled in the house of Zeus”Iliad4, 1. —it is in order, I take it, to elevate one’s diction when one is on high—look off at the earth and gaze about in every direction, leaning down to see if they can see fire being lighted anywhere, or steam drifting up to them “about the smoke entwined.”Iliad 1, 317. If anybody sacrifices, they all have a feast, opening their mouths for the smoke and drinking the blood that is spilt at the altars, just like flies; but if they dine at home, their meal is nectar and ambrosia. In days of old, men used to dine and drink with them—Ixion and Tantalus—but as they behaved shockingly and talked too much, they are still undergoing punishment to this day, and there is now no admission for human beings to Heaven, which is strictly private.
