PHAEDO DEATH SCENE
 (115B1–118A17)

A number of Socrates’ friends have come to visit him in prison on the last day of his life. Their conversation focuses on the nature of the soul, arguments for its immortality, and the afterlife. We join it in its final stage. Phaedo—a close friend of Socrates from Elis in the Peloponnese—is the narrator.

“Well, Socrates,” Crito said, “what are your final instructions [115b] for these others or for me concerning your children or anything else? What can we do that would please you most?”

“Just the things I’m always saying, Crito,” he said. “Nothing very new. If you take care of your own selves,¹ you’ll please both me and mine and yourselves in whatever you do—even if you make no agreements now. But if you don’t take care of your own selves and are unwilling to live following the tracks, as it were, of our present and past discussions, then however much you may agree to do at this moment, and however earnestly, you’ll accomplish nothing.” [c]

“We’ll try hard, then, to do as you say,” he said. “But how are we to bury you?”

“Whatever way you like,” he said, “provided you can catch me, and I don’t elude you.” And laughing quietly and looking toward us, he said, “Gentlemen, I can’t persuade Crito that I am Socrates here, the one who’s talking to you now and setting out in order each of the arguments put forward. He thinks I’m that corpse he’ll see in a little while and actually asks how to bury me! As for the lengthy argument [d] I’ve been making, that when I drink the poison² I’ll no longer stay put, but will take my leave of you and depart for certain happy conditions of the blessed—all that, I suppose, he regards as idle talk, intended to console all of you and myself as well. So I want you to give a guarantee to Crito on my behalf,” he said, “the opposite guarantee to the one he gave to the jurors. His was that I’d stay put, whereas you must guarantee that I won’t stay put when I die, but take my leave of you and depart. In that way, Crito will bear it more easily when he [e] sees my body being burned or buried, and he won’t feel resentful on my behalf, as if I were suffering terrible things, and won’t say at the funeral that it’s Socrates they’re laying out, or bearing to the grave, or burying. You see, you may be sure, my dearest Crito,” he said, “that false speaking is not only an error in its own terms, but also does something bad to men’s souls. No, you should be of good cheer, and say you’re burying my body, and bury it in any way you like and think most customary.” [116a]

After saying that, he got up and went into another room to take his bath.³ Crito followed him, but he told us to stay where we were. So we stayed there, talking among ourselves about what had been said and reexamining it, and sometimes going over again how great a misfortune had befallen us. It was, we thought, simply as if we’d lost a father and would spend the rest of our lives as orphans.

When he had bathed and his children had been brought to him—two of his sons were small while [b] one was older—and those women of his household⁴ had come, he spoke with them in Crito’s presence and gave instructions as to his wishes. He then asked the women and children to leave while he himself returned to us.

It was now almost sunset, since he’d spent a long time inside. He came and sat down, fresh from his bath, and didn’t talk much after that. Then the agent of the Eleven came and stood by him: “Socrates,” he said, “I won’t reproach you, as I reproach others, if [c] you’re angry with me and curse me, when, on the orders of the officials, I tell you to drink the poison. During the rest of the time you’ve spent here, I’ve known you as the most decent, gentlest, and best man who’s ever come to this place. And now, in particular, I’m sure that you won’t be angry with me, but with those whom you know to be responsible. Now then, you know the message I’ve come to bring. Fare you well, and try to bear the inevitable as easily as you can.” As he said this, he burst into tears and turned [d] to leave.

Socrates looked up at him: “Fare you well too,” he said, “we’ll do that.” And turning to us, he said, “What a courteous fellow! During the entire time I’ve been here he’s come in and talked to me on occasion, like the excellent man he is. And now how decent of him to weep for me! Come then, Crito, let’s do as he asks and have the poison brought if it’s ready. If not, have the man prepare it.”

“But Socrates,” said Crito, “I think the sun’s still [e] on the mountains and hasn’t yet set. What’s more, I know that other people drink the poison long after the order’s been given, enjoying themselves with a good dinner and plenty to drink and even, in some cases, by having sex with whomever they happen to desire. Don’t be in a hurry: there’s still time left.”

And Socrates replied, “It’s quite reasonable, Crito, for those people to do those things, since they think they gain something by doing them. And it’s reasonable too for me not to do them, since I think I’ll gain nothing by drinking the poison a little later—apart, that is, from making myself look absurd in my own [117a] eyes by clinging greedily to life and sparing the dregs.⁵ Go on, now, do as I ask,” he said, “and don’t refuse me.”

Hearing this, Crito nodded to the slave who was standing nearby. The slave went out and after a time returned with the man who was going to administer the poison and was carrying it already mixed in a cup. When Socrates saw the man, he said, “Well, my friend, you know all about these things: what should I do?”

“Just drink it,” he said, “and walk around until your legs feel heavy; then lie down, and it will act of itself.” [b] With that, he handed Socrates the cup.

He took it quite calmly, Echecrates,⁶ without a tremor or any change of color or countenance; but giving the man his customary mischievous stare, he said, “What do you say about pouring a libation to someone from this drink? Is it permitted or not?”

“We prepare only as much as we think will be the sufficient dose, Socrates,” he said.

“I understand,” he said. “But one is, I suppose, permitted to utter a prayer to the gods—and one [c] should do so—that one’s journey from this world to the next will prove fortunate. That is my prayer; may it be fulfilled.” And with these words, he put the cup to his lips and without the least difficulty or distaste drained it. Most of us had been fairly well able to restrain our tears till then. But when we saw him drinking it, and then that he had drunk it, we could do so no longer. In my own case, the tears were pouring down my cheeks despite my efforts, so that I covered my face and wept for myself—not for him, certainly not, but for my own misfortune in losing such a man as a friend. Crito had got up and moved [d] away even before I did, when he was unable to hold back his tears. And Apollodorus, who earlier still had been weeping steadily, now burst forth in such a storm of tears and distress that he made everyone present break down—except, that is, for Socrates himself.

“What a way to behave, my friends!” he said. “Why it was for just this reason, you know, that I sent the women away, so they wouldn’t commit these sorts of errors. I’ve heard indeed that one should die in reverent silence. Come, mind your behavior and control [e] yourselves.”

When we heard this we were ashamed and checked our tears. He walked around, and when his legs felt heavy, as he said, he lay down on his back—as the man told him—and then the man, the one who’d given him the poison, took hold of him⁷ and after a while examined his feet and legs. He then pinched his foot hard and asked if he could feel it, and Socrates said, “No.” After that, he did the same thing in turn to his shins; and moving upward in this way he showed [118a] us that he was becoming cold and numb. He himself continued to keep hold of him and said that when the coldness reached his heart, he’d be gone.

Well, by this time the coldness was somewhere in the region of his groin, when, uncovering his head—it had been covered up—he spoke—and these were in fact the last words he uttered. “Crito,” he said, “we owe a cock to Asclepius.⁸ Please, don’t forget to pay the debt.”

“It shall be done,” said Crito. “Is there anything else you want to say?”

To this question he gave no answer. But shortly afterward he stirred, and when the man uncovered him his eyes were fixed. Seeing this, Crito closed his mouth and his eyes.

Such was the end of our friend, Echecrates, a man who, we would say, was the best of all those we’ve experienced and, generally speaking, the wisest and the most just.

From The Trials of Socrates, translated and edited by C.D.C. Reeve (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 2002). Copyright © 2002. Reprinted by permission of the publisher.

1. [See Apology 29d2-30b4.—C.D.C.R.]

2. [Executions in Athens were by poison hemlock.]

3. [Socrates has said that he will bathe before taking the hemlock so as “to save the women the trouble of washing the corpse” (115a8–9).]

4. [Presumably his wife, Xanthippe, and others (60a3–5).]

5. [See Hesiod, Works and Days 368–9: “When the cask has just been opened, and when it’s almost gone, drink as much as you want; / Be sparing when its half full; but it’s useless to spare the dregs.”]

6. [Echecrates, an adherent of Pythagorean philosophy, is the person to whom Phaedo is narrating his account.]

7. [Probably in order to steady Socrates during the convulsions that usually accompany hemlock poisoning. Plato may have omitted more explicit reference to these in order, among other things, to dramatize Socrates’ tranquil acceptance of his fate. See C. Gill, “The Death of Socrates,” Classical Quarterly 23 (1973): 225–8.]

8. [Asclepius is the god of healing. The significance of Socrates’ dying words has been much debated. See Glenn W. Most, “‘A Cock for Asclepius,’” Classical Quarterly 43 (1993): 96–111.]