Apology, Crito, and Phaedo of Socrates Part 2

Far from it, O Athenians! A fine life it would be for me at my age to go out wandering, and driven from city to city, and so to live. For I well know that, wherever I may go, the youth will listen to me when I speak, as they do here. And if I repulse them, they will themselves drive me out, persuading the elders; and if I do not repulse them, their fathers and kindred will banish me on their account.

28. Perhaps, however, some one will say, Can you not, Socrates, when you have gone from us, live a silent and quiet life? This is the most difficult thing of all to persuade some of you. For if I say that that would be to disobey the deity, and that, therefore, it is impossible for me to live quietly, you would not believe me, thinking I spoke ironically. If, on the other hand, I say that this is the greatest good to man, to discourse daily on virtue, and other things which you have heard me discussing, examining both myself and others, but that a life without investigation is not worth living for, still less would you believe me if I said this. Such, however, is the case, as I affirm, O Athenians! though it is not easy to persuade you. And at the same time I am not accustomed to think myself deserving of any ill. If, indeed, I were rich, I would amerce myself in such a sum as I should be able to pay; for then I should have suffered no harm, but now--for I can not, unless you are willing to amerce me in such a sum as I am able to pay.

But perhaps I could pay you a mina of silver: in that sum, then, I amerce myself. But Plato here, O Athenians! and Crito Critobulus, and Apollodorus bid me amerce myself in thirty minae, and they offer to be sureties. I amerce myself, then, to you in that sum; and they will be sufficient sureties for the money.

[The judges now proceeded to pa.s.s the sentence, and condemned Socrates to death; whereupon he continued:]

29. For the sake of no long s.p.a.ce of time, O Athenians! you will incur the character and reproach at the hands of those who wish to defame the city, of having put that wise man, Socrates, to death. For those who wish to defame you will a.s.sert that I am wise, though I am not. If, then, you had waited for a short time, this would have happened of its own accord; for observe my age, that it is far advanced in life, and near death. But I say this not to you all, but to those only who have condemned me to die. And I say this, too, to the same persons. Perhaps you think, O Athenians! that I have been convicted through the want of arguments, by which I might have persuaded you, had I thought it right to do and say any thing, so that I might escape punishment. Far otherwise: I have been convicted through want indeed, yet not of arguments, but of audacity and impudence, and of the inclination to say such things to you as would have been most agreeable for you to hear, had I lamented and bewailed and done and said many other things unworthy of me, as I affirm, but such as you are accustomed to hear from others. But neither did I then think that I ought, for the sake of avoiding danger, to do any thing unworthy of a freeman, nor do I now repent of having so defended myself; but I should much rather choose to die, having so defended myself, than to live in that way. For neither in a trial nor in battle is it right that I or any one else should employ every possible means whereby he may avoid death; for in battle it is frequently evident that a man might escape death by laying down his arms, and throwing himself on the mercy of his pursuers. And there are many other devices in every danger, by which to avoid death, if a man dares to do and say every thing. But this is not difficult, O Athenians!

to escape death; but it is much more difficult to avoid depravity, for it runs swifter than death. And now I, being slow and aged, am overtaken by the slower of the two; but my accusers, being strong and active, have been overtaken by the swifter, wickedness. And now I depart, condemned by you to death; but they condemned by truth, as guilty of iniquity and injustice: and I abide my sentence, and so do they. These things, perhaps, ought so to be, and I think that they are for the best.

30. In the next place, I desire to predict to you who have condemned me, what will be your fate; for I am now in that condition in which men most frequently prophesy--namely, when they are about to die. I say, then, to you, O Athenians! who have condemned me to death, that immediately after my death a punishment will overtake you, far more severe, by Jupiter!

than that which you have inflicted on me. For you have done this, thinking you should be freed from the necessity of giving an account of your lives. The very contrary, however, as I affirm, will happen to you.

Your accusers will be more numerous, whom I have now restrained, though you did not perceive it; and they will be more severe, inasmuch as they are younger, and you will be more indignant. For if you think that by putting men to death you will restrain any one from upbraiding you because you do not live well, you are much mistaken; for this method of escape is neither possible nor honorable; but that other is most honorable and most easy, not to put a check upon others, but for a man to take heed to himself how he may be most perfect. Having predicted thus much to those of you who have condemned me, I take my leave of you.

31. But with you who have voted for my acquittal I would gladly hold converse on what has now taken place, while the magistrates are busy, and I am not yet carried to the place where I must die. Stay with me, then, so long, O Athenians! for nothing hinders our conversing with each other, while we are permitted to do so; for I wish to make known to you, as being my friends, the meaning of that which has just now befallen me.

To me, then, O my judges! and in calling you judges I call you rightly--a strange thing has happened. For the wonted prophetic voice of my guardian deity on every former occasion, even in the most trifling affairs, opposed me if I was about to do any thing wrong; but now that has befallen me which ye yourselves behold, and which any one would think, and which is supposed to be the extremity of evil; yet neither when I departed from home in the morning did the warning of the G.o.d oppose me, nor when I came up here to the place of trial, nor in my address when I was about to say any thing; yet on other occasions it has frequently restrained me in the midst of speaking. But now it has never, throughout this proceeding, opposed me, either in what I did or said.

What, then, do I suppose to be the cause of this? I will tell you: what has befallen me appears to be a blessing; and it is impossible that we think rightly who suppose that death is an evil. A great proof of this to me is the fact that it is impossible but that the accustomed signal should have opposed me, unless I had been about to meet with some good.

32. Moreover, we may hence conclude that there is great hope that death is a blessing. For to die is one of two things: for either the dead may be annihilated, and have no sensation of any thing whatever; or, as it is said, there are a certain change and pa.s.sage of the soul from one place to another. And if it is a privation of all sensation, as it were a sleep in which the sleeper has no dream, death would be a wonderful gain. For I think that if any one, having selected a night in which he slept so soundly as not to have had a dream, and having compared this night with all the other nights and days of his life, should be required, on consideration, to say how many days and nights he had pa.s.sed better and more pleasantly than this night throughout his life, I think that not only a private person, but even the great king himself, would find them easy to number, in comparison with other days and nights. If, therefore, death is a thing of this kind, I say it is a gain; for thus all futurity appears to be nothing more than one night.

But if, on the other hand, death is a removal from hence to another place, and what is said be true, that all the dead are there, what greater blessing can there be than this, my judges? For if, on arriving at Hades, released from these who pretend to be judges, one shall find those who are true judges, and who are said to judge there, Minos and Rhadamanthus, aeacus and Triptolemus, and such others of the demi-G.o.ds as were just during their own life, would this be a sad removal? At what price would you not estimate a conference with Orpheus and Musaeus, Hesiod and Homer? I indeed should be willing to die often, if this be true. For to me the sojourn there would be admirable, when I should meet with Palamedes, and Ajax, son of Telamon, and any other of the ancients who has died by an unjust sentence. The comparing my sufferings with theirs would, I think, be no unpleasing occupation. But the greatest pleasure would be to spend my time in questioning and examining the people there as I have done those here, and discovering who among them is wise, and who fancies himself to be so, but is not. At what price, my judges, would not any one estimate the opportunity of questioning him who led that mighty army against Troy, or Ulysses, or Sisyphus, or ten thousand others whom one might mention both men and women--with whom to converse and a.s.sociate, and to question them, would be an inconceivable happiness? Surely for that the judges there do not condemn to death; for in other respects those who live there are more happy than those who are here, and are henceforth immortal, if, at least, what is said be true.

33. You, therefore, O my judges! ought to entertain good hopes with respect to death, and to meditate on this one truth, that to a good man nothing is evil, neither while living nor when dead, nor are his concerns neglected by the G.o.ds. And what has befallen me is not the effect of chance; but this is clear to me, that now to die, and be freed from my cares is better for me On this account the warning in no way turned me aside; and I bear no resentment toward those who condemned me, or against my accusers, although they did not condemn and accuse me with this intention, but thinking to injure me: in this they deserve to be blamed.

Thus much, however, I beg of them. Punish my sons when they grow up, O judges! paining them as I have pained you, if they appear to you to care for riches or anything else before virtue; and if they think themselves to be something when they are nothing, reproach them as I have done you, for not attending to what they ought, and for conceiving themselves to be something when they are worth nothing. If ye do this, both I and my sons shall have met with just treatment at your hands.

But it is now time to depart--for me to die, for you to live. But which of us is going to a better state is unknown to every one but G.o.d.

FOOTNOTES

[1] Aristophanes.

[2] "Iliad," lib. xviii. ver. 94, etc.

[3] See the "Crito," sec. 5.

[4] ouden legei, literally, "he says nothing:" on se trompe, ou l'on vous impose, _Cousin_.

[5] But for the authority of Stallbaum, I should have translated dikanika "forensic;" that is, such arguments as an advocate would use in a court of justice.

INTRODUCTION TO THE CRITO.

It has been remarked by Stallbaum that Plato had a twofold design in this dialogue--one, and that the primary one, to free Socrates from the imputation of having attempted to corrupt the Athenian youth; the other, to establish the principle that under all circ.u.mstances it is the duty of a good citizen to obey the laws of his country. These two points, however, are so closely interwoven with each other, that the general principle appears only to be ill.u.s.trated by the example of Socrates.

Crito was one of those friends of Socrates who had been present at his trial, and had offered to a.s.sist in paying a fine, had a fine been imposed instead of the sentence of death. He appears to have frequently visited his friend in prison after his condemnation; and now, having obtained access to his cell very early in the morning, finds him composed in a quiet sleep. He brings intelligence that the ship, the arrival of which would be the signal for his death on the following day, is expected to arrive forthwith, and takes occasion to entreat Socrates to make his escape, the means of which were already prepared. Socrates thereupon, having promised to follow the advice of Crito if, after the matter had been fully discussed, it should appear to be right to do so, proposes to consider the duty of a citizen toward his country; and having established the divine principle that it is wrong to return evil for evil, goes on to show that the obligations of a citizen to his country are even more binding than those of a child to its parent, or a slave to his master, and that therefore it is his duty to obey the established laws, at whatever cost to himself.

At length Crito admits that he has no answer to make, and Socrates resolves to submit himself to the will of Providence.

CRITO; OR, THE DUTY OF A CITIZEN.

SOCRATES, CRITO.

_Socr._ Why have you come at this hour, Crito? Is it not very early?

_Cri._ It is.

_Socr._ About what time?

_Cri._ Scarce day-break.

_Socr._ I wonder how the keeper of the prison came to admit you.

_Cri._ He is familiar with me, Socrates, from my having frequently come hither; and he is under some obligations to me.

_Socr._ Have you just now come, or some time since?

_Cri._ A considerable time since.

_Socr._ Why, then, did you not wake me at once, instead of sitting down by me in silence?

_Cri._ By Jupiter! Socrates, I should not myself like to be so long awake, and in such affliction. But I have been for some time wondering at you, perceiving how sweetly you slept; and I purposely did not awake you, that you might pa.s.s your time as pleasantly as possible. And, indeed, I have often before throughout your whole life considered you happy in your disposition, but far more so in the present calamity, seeing how easily and meekly you bear it.

_Socr._ However, Crito, it would be disconsonant for a man at my time of life to repine because he must needs die.

_Cri._ But others, Socrates, at your age have been involved in similar calamities, yet their age has not hindered their repining at their present fortune.

_Socr._ So it is. But why did you come so early?

_Cri._ Bringing sad tidings, Socrates, not sad to you, as it appears, but to me, and all your friends, sad and heavy, and which I, I think, shall bear worst of all.

_Socr._ What tidings? Has the ship[6] arrived from Delos, on the arrival of which I must die?

_Cri._ It has not yet arrived, but it appears to me that it will come to-day, from what certain persons report who have come from Sunium,[7]

and left it there. It is clear, therefore, from these messengers, that it will come to day, and consequently it will be necessary, Socrates, for you to die to-morrow.

2. _Socr._ But with good fortune, Crito, and if so it please the G.o.ds, so be it. I do not think, however, that it will come to day.

_Cri._ Whence do you form this conjecture?

_Socr._ I will tell you. I must die on the day after that on which the ship arrives.

_Cri._ So they say[8] who have the control of these things.