“Oh, my child, most unfortunate of men,

Persephone, Zeus daughter, does not deceive you:

This is the way it is with mortals after death.

The sinews no longer bind flesh and bone,

The fierce heat of the blazing pyre consumes them,

And the spirit flees from our white bones,

A ghost that flutters and goes like a dream.

Hasten to the light, with all speed:

Remember these things, to speak to your wife of them.”

Odysseus – Book XI