Some say that the body (sôma) is the grave (sêma) of the soul (psykhê), which may be thought of as buried in our present life; or again, as the index of the soul, because the soul gives indications to the body. Probably the Orphic poets were the inventors of the name, and they were under the impression that the soul suffers the punishment of sin, and that the body is an enclosure or prison in which the soul is incarcerated - kept safe, as the name sôma implies until the penalty is paid.

- Plato, Cratylus 400c