And for this reason I was not at all filled with pity, as might seem natural
when I was present at a scene of mourning; nor on the other hand did I feel
pleasure because we were occupied with philosophy, as was our custom—and
our talk was of philosophy;—but a very strange feeling came over me, an
unaccustomed mixture of pleasure and of pain together, when I thought that
Socrates was presently to die. And all of us who were there were in much the
same condition, sometimes laughing and sometimes weeping; especially one of us,
Apollodorus; you know him and his
character.
To be sure I do.
He was quite unrestrained, and I was much agitated myself, as were the
others.
Who were these, Phaedo?
Of native Athenians there was this Apollodorus, and Critobulus and his father,
and Hermogenes and Epiganes and Aeschines and Antisthenes; and Ctesippus the
Paeanian was there too, and Menexenus and some other Athenians. But Plato, I
think, was ill.
Were any foreigners there?
Yes, Simmias of Thebes and Cebes and
Phaedonides, and from Megara Euclides and Terpsion.
What? Were Aristippus and Cleombrotus there?
No. They were said to be in Aegina.
Was anyone else there?
I think these were about all.
Well then, what was the conversation?
I will try to tell you everything from the beginning. On the previous days I and the others had always been in the
habit of visiting Socrates. We used to meet at daybreak in the court where the
trial took place, for it was near the prison; and every day we used to wait
about, talking with each other, until the prison was opened, for it was not
opened early; and when it was opened, we went in to Socrates and passed most of
the day with him. On that day we came together earlier; for the day before,
when we left the prison in the evening we
heard that the ship had arrived from Delos. So we agreed to come to the usual place as early in the
morning as possible. And we came, and the jailer who usually answered the door
came out and told us to wait and not go in until he told us. For,
he said, the eleven are releasing Socrates from his fetters and giving
directions how he is to die today.
So after a little delay he came and
told us to
go in. We went in then and found Socrates just released from his fetters and
Xanthippe—you know her—with his little son in her arms, sitting
beside him. Now when Xanthippe saw us, she cried out and said the kind of thing
that women always do say: Oh Socrates, this is the last time now that
your friends will speak to you or you to them. And Socrates glanced at
Crito and said, Crito, let somebody take her home.And some of Crito’s people took her away wailing and beating her breast. But Socrates sat
up on his couch and bent his leg and rubbed it with his hand, and while he was
rubbing it, he said, What a strange thing, my friends, that seems to be
which men call pleasure! How wonderfully it is related to that which seems to be
its opposite, pain, in that they will not both come to a man at the same time,
and yet if he pursues the one and captures it he is generally obliged to take
the other also, as if the two were joined together in one head. And I
think,
he said, if Aesop had thought of them, he would have made a fable telling how they were at war and god
wished to reconcile them, and when he could not do that, he fastened their heads
together, and for that reason, when one of them comes to anyone, the other
follows after. Just so it seems that in my case, after pain was in my leg on
account of the fetter, pleasure appears to have come following
after.Here Cebes interrupted and said,
By Zeus, Socrates, I am glad you reminded me.
Several others have asked about the poems you have composed,
the metrical versions of Aesop’s fables and the hymn to Apollo, and Evenus asked
me the day before yesterday why you never wrote any poetry before, composed
these verses after you came to prison. Now, if you care that I should be able to
answer Evenus when he asks me again—and I know he will ask me—tell
me what to say.Then tell him,
Cebes, said he, the truth, that I composed these verses not
because I wished to rival him or his poems,
for I knew that would not be easy, but because I wished to test the meaning of
certain dreams, and to make sure that I was neglecting no duty in case their
repeated commands meant that I must cultivate the Muses in this way. They were
something like this. The same dream came to me often in my past life, sometimes
in one form and sometimes in another, but always saying the same thing:
Socrates, it said, make music and work at it.