Phaedo

Plato Phaedo

Translated with Notes by

David Gallop

CLARENDON PLATO SERIES General Editor: M.J.Woods

PLATO Phaedo

Translated with Notes by

DAVID GALLOP

PROFESSOR OF PHILOSOPHY TRENT UNIVERSITY, ONTARIO

CLARENDON PRESS • OXFORD

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PREFACE

This book is designed for philosophical study of the Phaedo. Like other volumes in the present series, it is intended primarily for those who do not read Greek. The translation is based on J. Burnet's Oxford Classical Text (1900), except where indicated in the Notes, or Notes on the Text and Translation. Notes in the latter series are referred to by indices in the translation, and deal with linguistic and textual problems. They are inessential for grasp of the philosophical issues which occupy the main Notes.

The Phaedo is one of the most frequently translated, edited, and discussed of all Plato's dialogues. To take full account of the liter­ature in English alone would need a book far larger than this one. As far as space allows, however, I have used existing studies as a spring-board for my own comments, and as a guide on problems that remain unsolved or lie beyond the scope of this work.

Earlier translations and editions have been referred to by author's name only. Abbreviations have been used for the titles of certain other books, and for most periodicals. A key to these will be found in the list of Works and Periodicals Cited. The Bibliography contains only a minimum of works necessary for detailed study.

The numbers and letters in the margin of the translation are the Stephanus page numbers and section markings used in most modern editions of Plato's works. The marginal line numbers, and the line numbers used for references in the Notes, are those of Burnet's text. They correspond closely, but not always exactly, with the division of lines in the translation. Cross-references of the form 'see on 64c2—9' are to the main Notes. Those of the form 'see note 27' are to the Notes on the Text and Translation. Parenthetical references in the form '(b3—cl)' are to places within the passage covered by the note in which they appear.

I have made frequent use of other translations, and have taken ideas from them wherever they served my purpose. This has been to render Plato's text as accurately and naturally as possible. When, as often, these criteria conflict, I have aimed for accuracy where philosophical questions are at stake. I have also tried, as far as possible, to avoid prejudging questions of interpretation in the translation itself. The intrusive 'he said', which is often awkward in translation, has frequently been omitted.

My cordial thanks are due to Mr. M. J. Woods, the General Editor of this series, for his advice and encouragement, and for the many improvements which his penetrating comments have led me to make. Professor T. M. Robinson kindly read a draft of the translation and made many valuable suggestions. I am indebted to members of the University of Toronto Ancient Philosophy seminar, whose dis­cussions advanced my understanding of the dialogue; to Professors G. Vlastos and M. T. Thornton for correspondence; to Professor J. L. Ackrill and Mr. M. D. Reeve for helpful discussion; to Professor C. V. Boundas for advice on individual passages; and to many other friends and colleagues, who have contributed more often, and in more ways, than brief acknowledgements can convey.

The manuscript was prepared with the help of Mrs. Gillian Sparrow, for whose assiduous and careful typing I am most grateful, and Mr. K. E. Inwood, whose checking of the final draft saved me from many mistakes.

I am also grateful to Trent University for leaves of absence in 1970 and 1973—4, during which much of the book was written, and to the Canada Council and Nuffield Foundation for generous support. Finally, it is a pleasure to thank the Principal and Fellows of Brasenose College, Oxford, for their kindness in electing me to Senior Common Room membership in 1973—4, and for the hospit­ality of the College on several occasions while the work was in progress.

Trent University, DAVID GALLOP

Peterborough,

Ontario

In the 1983 impression some typographical errors have been corrected and a supplement added to the Bibliography.

CONTENTS

TRANSLATION j

NOTES 74

NOTES ON THE TEXT AND TRANSLATION 226

SELECT AND ADDITIONAL BIBLIOGRAPHIES 239

ABBREVIATIONS 242

INDEX 244

PHAEDO

Echecrates. Were you there with Socrates yourself, Phaedo, on 57 the day he drank the poison in the prison, or did you hear of it from someone else?

Phaedo. I was there myself, Echecrates.

Echecrates. Then what was it that he said before his death? And 5 how did he meet his end? I'd like to hear about it. You see, hardly anyone from Phlius goes to stay at Athens nowadays, and no visitor has come from there for a long time who could give us any definite b report of these events, beyond the fact that he died by drinking poison; there was nothing more they could tell us.

Phaedo. Didn't you even learn, then, about how the trial went? 58 Echecrates. Yes, someone did report that to us, and we were surprised that it was evidently long after it was over that he died. Why was that, Phaedo? 5

Phaedo. It was chance in his case, Echecrates: it just chanced that on the day before the trial the stern of the ship that Athenians send to Delos had been wreathed. Echecrates. What ship is that?

Phaedo. According to Athenian legend, it's the ship in which 10 Theseus once sailed to Crete, taking the famous 'seven pairs', when he saved their lives and his own as well. It is said that at that time the b Athenians had made a vow to Apollo that if they were saved, they would, in return, dispatch a mission to Delos every year; and this they have sent annually ever since, down to this day, in honour of the god. Once they've started the mission, it is their law that the city 5 shall be pure during that period, which means that the state shall put no one to death, till the ship has reached Delos and returned; and this sometimes takes a long time, when winds happen to hold them c back. The mission starts as soon as the priest of Apollo has wreathed the stern of the ship; and, as I say, this chanced to have taken place on the day before the trial. That's why Socrates spent a long time in prison between his trial and death. 5

Echecrates. And what about the circumstances of the death itself,

l

Phaedo? What was it that was said and done, and which of his intimates were there with him? Or would the authorities allow no one to be present, so that he met his end isolated from his friends? d Phaedo. By no means: some were present, in fact quite a number.

Echecrates. Please do try, then, to give us as definite a report as you can of the whole thing, unless you happen to be otherwise engaged.

Phaedo. No, I am free, and I'll try to describe it for you; indeed 5 it's always the greatest of pleasures for me to recall Socrates, whether speaking myself or listening to someone else.

Echecrates. Well, Phaedo, you certainly have an audience of the same mind; so try to recount everything as minutely as you can. e Phaedo. Very well then. I myself was curiously affected while I was there: it wasn't pity that visited me, as might have been expected for someone present at the death of an intimate friend; because the man seemed to me happy, Echecrates, both in his manner and his words, so fearlessly and nobly was he meeting his end; and so I felt 5 assured that even while on his way to Hades he would not go without divine providence, and that when he arrived there he would fare 59 well, if ever any man did. That's why I wasn't visited at all by the pity that would seem natural for someone present at a scene of sorrow, nor again by the pleasure from our being occupied, as usual, with philosophy—because the discussion was, in fact, of that sort— 5 but a simply extraordinary feeling was upon me, a sort of strange mixture of pleasure and pain combined, as I reflected that Socrates was shortly going to die. All of us there were affected in much the same way, now laughing, now in tears, one of us quite exceptionally b so, Apollodorus—I think you know the man and his manner.

Echecrates. Of course.

Phaedo. Well, he was completely overcome by this state; and I myself was much upset, as were the others. 5 Echecrates. And just who were there, Phaedo?

Phaedo. Of the local people there was this Apollodorus, and Critobulus and his father, and then there were Hermogenes, Epigenes, Aeschines, and Antisthenes; Ctesippus of the Paeanian deme was there too, and Menexenus and some other local people. Plato, I 10 believe, was sick.

Echecrates. Were there any visitors there?

Phaedo. Yes: Simmias of Thebes, and Cebes and Phaedondes; and c Euclides and Terpsion from Megara.

Echecrates. What about Aristippus and Cleombrotus? Were they there?

Phaedo. No, they weren't; they were said to be in Aegina.

Echecrates. Was anyone else there? 5

Phaedo. I think those were about all.

Echecrates. Well then, what discussion do you say took place?

Phaedo. I'll try to describe everything for you from the beginning. Regularly, you see, and especially on the preceding days, I myself d and Socrates' other companions had been in the habit of visiting him; we would meet at daybreak at the court-house, where the trial was held, as it was close to the prison. We used to wait each day till the prison opened, talking with one another, as it didn't open 5 very early. When it did, we would go in to Socrates and generally spent the day with him. On that particular day we'd met earlier still; because when we left the prison the evening before, we learnt e that the ship had arrived from Delos. So we passed the word to one another to come to our usual place as early as possible. When we arrived, the door-keeper who usually admitted us came out and told us to wait, and not to go in till he gave the word; 'because', he said, 5 'the Eleven are releasing Socrates, and giving orders that he's to die today.' But after a short interval he came back and told us to go in. On entering we found Socrates, just released, and Xanthippe—you 60 know her—holding his little boy and sitting beside him. When she saw us, Xanthippe broke out and said just the kinds of thing that women are given to saying: 'So this is the very last time, Socrates, that your 5 good friends will speak to you and you to them.' At which Socrates looked at Crito and said: 'Crito, someone had better take her home.'

So she was taken away by some of Crito's people, calling out and lamenting; Socrates, meanwhile, sat up on the bed, bent his leg, and b rubbed it down with his hand. As he rubbed it, he said: 'What an odd thing it seems, friends, this state that men call "pleasant"; and how curiously it's related to its supposed opposite, "painful": to think 5 that the pair of them refuse to visit a man together, yet if anybody

pursues one of them and catches it, he's always pretty well bound to catch the other as well, as if the two of them were attached to a c single head. I do believe that if Aesop had thought of them, he'd have made up a story telling how God wanted to reconcile them in their quarrelling, but when he couldn't he fastened their heads together, and that's why anybody visited by one of them is later 5 attended by the other as well. This is just what seems to be happen­ing in my own case: there was discomfort in my leg because of the fetter, and now the pleasant seems to have come to succeed it.'

Here Cebes joined in and said: 'Goodness yes, Socrates,-thanks for reminding me. Several people, you know, including Evenus just d the other day, have been asking me about the poems you've made up, putting the tales of Aesop into verse, and the hymn to Apollo: what had you in mind, they asked, in making them up after you'd come here, when you'd never made up anything before? So if you'd 5 like me to have an answer for Evenus when he asks me again—and I'm quite sure he will—tell me what I should say.'

'Tell him the truth, then, Cebes,' he said: 'I made them, not e because I wanted to compete with him or his verses—I knew that wouldn't be easy—but because I was trying to find out the meaning of certain dreams and fulfil a sacred duty, in case perhaps it was that kind of art they were ordering me to make. They were like this, you 5 see: often in my past life the same dream had visited me, now in one guise, now in another, but always saying the same thing: "Socrates," it said, "make art and practise it." Now in earlier times I used to assume that the dream was urging and telling me to do exactly what 61 I was doing: as people shout encouragement to runners, so the dream was telling me to do the very thing that I was doing, to make art, since philosophy is a very high art form, and that was what I was 5 making. But now that the trial was over and the festival of the god was preventing my death, I thought that in case it was art in the popular sense that the dream was commanding me to make, I ought not to disobey it, but should make it; as it was safer not to go off b before I'd fulfilled a sacred duty, by making verses and thus obeying the dream. And so I first made them for the god in whose honour the present feast was kept. Then, after addressing the god, I reflected that a poet should, if he were really going to be a poet, make tales

rather than true stories; and being no teller of tales myself, I there- 5 fore used some I had ready to hand; I knew the tales of Aesop by heart, and I made verses from the first of these I came across. So give Evenus this message, Cebes: say good-bye to him, and tell him, if he's sensible, to come after me as quickly as he can. I'm off today, c it seems—by Athenians' orders.'

'What a thing you're urging Evenus to do, Socrates!' said Simmias. 'I've come across the man often before now; and from what I've seen of him, he'll hardly be at all willing to obey you.' 5

'Why,' he said, 'isn't Evenus a philosopher?'

'I believe so,' said Simmias.

'Then Evenus will be willing, and so will everyone who engages worthily in this business. Perhaps, though, he won't do violence to himself: they say it's forbidden.' As he said this he lowered his legs 10 to the ground, and then remained sitting in that position for the rest d of the discussion.

Cebes now asked him: 'How can you say this, Socrates? How can it both be forbidden to do violence to oneself, and be the case that the philosopher would be willing to follow the dying?' 5

'Why Cebes, haven't you and Simmias heard about such things through being with Philolaus?'

'No, nothing definite, Socrates.'

'Well, I myself can speak about them only from hearsay; but what I happen to have heard I don't mind telling you. Indeed, maybe 10 it's specially fitting that someone about to make the journey to the e next world should inquire and speculate as to what we imagine that journey to be like; after all, what else should one do during the time till sundown?'

'Well then, Socrates, on just what ground do they say it's for- 5 bidden to kill oneself? Because—to answer the question you were just asking—I certainly did hear from Philolaus, when he was living with us, and earlier from several others, that one ought not to do that; but I've never heard anything definite about it from anyone.'

'Well you must take heart,' he said; 'as maybe you will hear. 62 Perhaps, though, it will seem a matter for wonder to you if this alone of all things is unqualified, and it never happens as other things do sometimes and for some people, that it is better for a man to be

5 dead than alive; and for those for whom it is better to be dead, perhaps it seems a matter for wonder to you if for these men it is not holy to do good to themselves, but they must await another benefactor.'

Cebes chuckled at this. 'Hark at that, now!' he said, speaking in his own dialect.

b 'Well yes,' said Socrates, 'it would seem unreasonable, put that way; but perhaps there is, in fact, some reason for it. The reason given in mysteries on the subject, that we men are in some sort of prison,¹ and that one ought not to release oneself from it or run 5 away, seems to me a lofty idea and not easy to penetrate; but still, Cebes, this much seems to me well said: it is gods who care for us, and for the gods we men are among their belongings. Don't you think so?' 10 'I do,' said Cebes.

c 'Well, if one of your belongings were to kill itself, without your signifying that you wanted it to die, wouldn't you be vexed with it, and punish it, if you had any punishment at hand?'² 5 'Certainly.'

'So perhaps, in that case, it isn't unreasonable that one should not kill oneself until God sends some necessity, such as the one now before us.'

'Yes, that does seem fair,' said Cebes. 'But then what you were 10 saying just now—that philosophers should be willing to die lightly— d that seems odd, if what we were just saying, that it is God who cares for us, and that we are his belongings, is well founded.. Because it's unreasonable that the wisest of men should not be resentful at 5 quitting this service, where they're directed by the best directors there are—the gods; since a man of that sort, surely, doesn't believe he'll care for himself any better on becoming free. A stupid man would perhaps believe that: he would think he should escape from e his master, and wouldn't reflect that a good master is not one to escape from, but to stay with as long as possible, and so his escape would be irrational; but a man of intelligence would surely always want to be with one better than himself. Yet in that case, Socrates, the 5 very opposite of what was said just now seems likely: it's the wise who should be resentful at dying, whereas the foolish should wel­come it.'

When Socrates heard this he seemed to me pleased at Cebes' persistence, and looking at us he said: 'There goes Cebes, always 63 hunting down arguments, and not at all willing to accept at once what anyone may say.'

'Well yes,' said Simmias; 'but this time, Socrates, I think myself there's something in what Cebes says: why, indeed,, should truly 5 wise men want to escape from masters who are better than them­selves, and be separated from them lightly? So I think it's at you that Cebes is aiming his argument, because you take so lightly your leaving both ourselves and the gods, who are good rulers by your own admission.'

'What you both say is fair,' he said; 'as I take you to mean that I b should defend myself against these charges as if in a court of law.'

'Yes, exactly,' said Simmias.

'Very well then,' he said; 'let me try to defend myself more convincingly before you than I did before the jury. Because if I 5 didn't believe, Simmias and Cebes, that I shall enter the presence, first, of other gods both wise and good, and next of dead men better than those in this world, then I should be wrong not to be resentful at death; but as it is, be assured that I expect to join the company of good men—although that point I shouldn't affirm with absolute c conviction; but that I shall enter the presence of gods who are very good masters, be assured that if there's anything I should affirm on such matters, it is that. So that's why I am not so resentful, but rather am hopeful that there is something in store for those who've 5 died—in fact, as we've long been told, something far better for the good than for the wicked.'

'Well then, Socrates,' said Simmias, 'do you mean to go off keeping this thought to yourself, or would you share it with us too? We have a common claim on this benefit as well, I think; and at the d same time your defence will be made, if you persuade us of what you say.'

'All right, I'll try,' he said. 'But first let's find out what it is that Crito here has been wanting to say, for some time past, I think.'

'Why Socrates,' said Crito, 'it's simply that the man who's going 5 to give you the poison has been telling me for some time that you

must be warned to talk as little as possible: he says people get heated through talking too much,³ and one must bring nothing of e that sort in contact with the poison; people doing that sort of thing are sometimes obliged, otherwise, to drink twice or even three times.'

'Never mind him,' said Socrates. 'Just let him prepare his stuff so 5 as to give two doses, or even three if need be.'

'Yes, I pretty well knew it,' said Crito; 'but he's been giving me trouble for some while.'

'Let him be,' he said. 'Now then, with you for my jury I want to give my defence, and show with what good reason, as it seems to me, 10 a man who has truly spent his life in philosophy feels confident when 64 about to die, and is hopeful that, when he has died, he will win very great benefits in the other world. So I'll try, Simmias and Cebes, to explain how this could be.

'Other people may well be unaware that all who actually engage 5 in philosophy aright are practising nothing other than dying and being dead.⁴ Now if this is true, it would be odd indeed for them to be eager in their whole life for nothing but this, and yet to be resent­ful when it comes, the very thing they'd long been eager for and practised.'

Simmias laughed at this and said: 'Goodness, Socrates, you've b made me laugh, even though I wasn't much inclined to laugh just now. I imagine that most people, on hearing that, would think it very well said of philosophers—and our own countrymen would quite agree—that they are, indeed, verging on death, and that they, at 5 any rate, are well aware that this is what philosophers deserve to undergo.'

'Yes, and what they say would be true, Simmias, except for their claim to be aware of it themselves; because they aren't aware in what sense genuine philosophers are verging on death and deserving c of it, and what kind of death they deserve. Anyway, let's discuss it among ourselves, disregarding them: do we suppose that death is something ?'

'Certainly,' rejoined Simmias.

'And that it is nothing but the separation of the soul from the 5 body? And that being dead is this: the body's having come to be

apart, separated from the soul, alone by itself, and the soul's being apart, alone by itself, separated from the body? Death can't be anything else but that, can it?'

'No, it's just that.'

'Now look, my::'friend, and see if maybe you agree with me on 10 these points; because through them I think we'll improve our know- d ledge of what we're examining. Do you think it befits a philosophical man to be keen about the so-called pleasures of, for example, food and drink?'

'Not in the least, Socrates,' said Simmias. 5

'And what about those of sex?'

'Not at all.'

'And what about the other services to the body? Do you think such a man regards them as of any value? For instance, the possession of smart clothes and shoes, and the other bodily adornments—do 10 you think he values them highly, or does he disdain them, except in so far as he's absolutely compelled to share in them?' e

'I think the genuine philosopher disdains them.'

'Do you think in general, then, that such a man's concern is not for the body, but so far as he can stand aside from it, is directed 5 towards the soul?'

'I do.'

'Then is it clear that, first, in such matters as these the philosopher differs from other men in releasing his soul, as far as possible, from 65 its communion with the body?'

'It appears so.'

'And presumably, Simmias, it does seem to most men that someone who finds nothing of that sort pleasant, and takes no part 5 in those things, doesn't deserve to live; rather, one who cares nothing for the pleasures that come by way of the body runs pretty close to being dead.'

'Yes, what you say is quite true.'

'And now, what about the actual gaining of wisdom? Is the body 10 a hindrance or not, if one enlists it as a partner in the quest? This is b the sort of thing I mean: do sight and hearing afford men any truth, or aren't even the poets always harping on such themes, telling us that we neither hear nor see anything accurately? And yet if these

of all the bodily senses are neither accurate nor clear, the others will hardly be so; because they are, surely, all inferior to these. Don't you think so?'

'Certainly.'

'So when does the soul attain the truth? Because plainly, whenever it sets about examining anything in company with the body, it is completely taken in by it,'

'That's true.'

'So isn't it in reasoning, if anywhere at all, that any of the things that are become manifest to it?'

'Yes.'

'And it reasons best, presumably, whenever none of these things bothers it, neither hearing nor sight nor pain, nor any pleasure either, but whenever it comes to be alone by itself as far as possible, disregarding the body, and whenever, having the least possible communion and contact with it, it strives for that which is.'

'That is so.'

'So there again the soul of the philosopher utterly disdains the body and flees from it, seeking rather to come to be alone by itself?'

'It seems so.'

'Well now, what about things of this sort, Simmias? Do we say that there is something just, or nothing?'⁵

'Yes, we most certainly do!'

'And again, something beautiful, and goodV

'Of course.'

'Now did you ever yet see any such things with your eyes?'

'Certainly not.'

'Well did you grasp them with any other bodily sense-perception?⁶ And I'm talking about them all—about largeness, health, and strength, for example—and, in short, about the Being of all other such things, what each one actually is;⁷ is it through the body that their truest element⁸ is viewed, or isn't it rather thus: whoever of us is prepared to think most fully and minutely of each object of his inquiry, in itself, will come closest to the knowledge of each?'

'Yes, certainly.'

'Then would that be achieved most purely by the man who approached each object with his intellect alone as far as possible,

neither adducing sight⁹ in his thinking, nor dragging in any other sense to accompany his reasoning; rather, using his intellect alone 66 by itself and unsullied, he would undertake the hunt for each of the things that are, each alone by itself and unsullied; he would be separated as far as possible from his eyes and ears, and virtually from his whole body, on the ground that it confuses the soul, and doesn't 5 allow it to gain truth and wisdom when in partnership with it: isn't it this man, Simmias, who will attain that which is, if anyone will?'

'What you say is abundantly true, Socrates,' said Simmias. 10

'For all these reasons, then, some such view as this must present b itself to genuine philosophers, so that they say such things to one another as these: "There now, it looks as if some sort of track is leading us, together with our reason, astray in our inquiry:¹⁰ as long as we possess the body, and our soul is contaminated by such an evil, 5 we'll surely never adequately gain what we desire—and that, we say, is truth. Because the body affords us countless distractions, owing to the nurture it must have; and again, if any illnesses befall it, they c hamper our pursuit of that which is. Besides, it fills us up with lusts and desires, with fears and fantasies of every kind, and with any amount of trash, so that really and truly we are, as the saying goes, never able to think of anything at all because of it. Thus, it's nothing 5 but the body and its desires that brings wars and factions and fighting; because it's over the gaining of wealth that all wars take place, and we're compelled to gain wealth because of the body, enslaved d as we are to its service; so for all these reasons it leaves us no leisure for philosophy. And the worst of it all is that if we do get any leisure from it, and turn to some inquiry, once again it intrudes everywhere 5 in our researches, setting up a clamour and disturbance, and striking terror, so that the truth can't be discerned because of it. Well now, it really has been shown us that if we're ever going to know anything purely, we must be rid of it, and must view the objects themselves e with the soul by itself; it's then, apparently, that the thing we desire and whose lovers we claim to be, wisdom, will be ours—when we have died, as the argument indicates, though not while we live. Because, if we can know nothing purely in the body's company, then one of 5 two things must be true: either knowledge is nowhere to be gained, or else it is for the dead; since then, but no sooner, will the soul be 67

alone by itself apart from the body. And therefore while we live, it would seem that we shall be closest to knowledge in this way-if we consort with the body as little as possible, and do not commune with 5 it, except in so far as we must, and do not infect ourselves with its nature, but remain pure from it, until God himself shall release us; and being thus pure, through separation from the body's folly, we shall probably be in like company, and shall know through our b own selves all that is unsullied—and that, I dare say, is what the truth is; because never will it be permissible for impure to touch pure." Such are the things, I think, Simmias, that all who are rightly called lovers of knowledge must say to one another, and must 5 believe. Don't you agree?'

'Emphatically, Socrates.'

'Well then, if that's true, my friend,' said Socrates, 'there's plenty of hope for one who arrives where I'm going, that there, if anywhere, he will adequately possess the object that's been our 10 great concern in life gone by; and thus the journey now appointed c for me may also be made with good hope by any other man who regards his intellect as prepared, by having been, in a manner, purified.'

'Yes indeed,' said Simmias. 5 'Then doesn't purification turn out to be just what's been men­tioned for some while in our discussion¹¹—the parting of the soul from the body as far as possible, and the habituating of it to assemble and gather itself together, away from every part of the body, alone by itself, and to live, so far as it can, both in the present d and in the hereafter, released from the body, as from fetters?'

'Yes indeed.'

'And is it just this that is named "death"—a release and parting 5 of soul from body?'

'Indeed it is.'

'And it's especially those who practise philosophy aright, or rather they alone, who are always eager to release it, as we say, and the occupation of philosophers is just this, isn't it—a release and 10 parting of soul from body?'

'It seems so.'

'Then wouldn't it be absurd, as I said at the start, for a man to prepare himself in his life to live as close as he can to being dead, e and then to be resentful when this comes to him?'

'It would be absurd, of course,'

'Truly then, Simmias, those who practise philosophy aright are cultivating dying, and for them least of all men does being dead hold 5 any terror. Look at it like this: if they've set themselves at odds with the body at every point, and desire to possess their soul alone by itself, wouldn't it be quite illogical if they were afraid and resentful when this came about-if, that is, they didn't go gladly to the place 68 where, on arrival, they may hope to attain what they longed for throughout life, namely wisdom—and to be rid of the company of that with which they'd set themselves at odds? Or again, many have been willing to enter Hades of their own accord, in quest of human 5 loves, of wives and sons¹² who have died, led by this hope, that there they would see and be united with those they desired; will anyone, then, who truly longs for wisdom, and who firmly holds this same hope, that nowhere but in Hades will he attain it in any way worth b mentioning, be resentful at dying; and will he not go there gladly? One must suppose so, my friend, if he's truly a lover of wisdom; since this will be his firm belief, that nowhere else but there will he attain wisdom purely. Yet if that is so, wouldn't it, as I said just now, 5 be quite illogical if such a man were afraid of death?'

'Yes, quite illogical!'

'Then if you see a man resentful that he is going to die, isn't this proof enough for you that he's no lover of wisdom after all, but c what we may call a lover of the body? And this same man turns out, in some sense, to be a lover of riches and of prestige, either one of these or both.'

'It's just as you say.'

'Well now, Simmias, isn't it also true that what is named "bravery" 5 belongs especially to people of the disposition we have described?'

'Most certainly.'

'And then temperance too, even what most people name "temperance"—not being excited over one's desires, but being scorn­ful of them and well-ordered—belongs, doesn't it, only to those who 10 utterly scorn the body and live in love of wisdom?'

'It must.' d

'Yes, because if you care to consider the bravery and temperance of other men, you'll find it strange.'

'How so, Socrates?' 5 'You know, don't you, that all other men count death among great evils?'

'Very much so.'

'Is it, then, through being afraid of greater evils that the brave among them abide death, whenever they do so?' 10 'It is.'

'Then, it's through fearing and fear that all men except philo­sophers are brave; and yet it's surely illogical that anyone should be brave through fear and cowardice.' e 'It certainly is.'

'And what about those of them who are well-ordered? Aren't they in this same state, temperate through a kind of intemperance? True, we say that's impossible; but still that state of simple-minded 5 temperance does turn out in their case to be like this: it's because they're afraid of being deprived of further pleasures, and desire them, that they abstain from some because they're overcome by 69 others. True, they call it "intemperance" to be ruled by pleasures, but still that's what happens to them: they overcome some pleasures because they're overcome by others. And this is the sort of thing that was just mentioned: after a fashion, they achieve temperance because of intemperance.' 5 'Yes, so it seems.'

'Yes, Simmias, my good friend;¹³ since this may not be the right exchange with a view to goodness, the exchanging of pleasures for pleasures, pains for pains, and fear for fear, greater for lesser ones, 10 like coins; it may be, rather, that this alone is the right coin, for b which one should exchange all these things—wisdom; and the buying and selling of all things for that, or rather with that, may be real bravery, temperance, justice, and, in short, true goodness in com­pany with wisdom, whether pleasures and fears and all else of that 5 sort be added or taken away; but as for their being parted from wisdom and exchanged for one another, goodness of that sort may be a kind of illusory facade, and fit for slaves indeed, and may have nothing healthy or true about it; whereas, truth to tell, temperance,

justice, and bravery may in fact be a kind of purification of all such c things, and wisdom itself a kind of purifying rite. So it really looks as if those who established our initiations are no mean people, but have in fact long been saying in riddles that whoever arrives in Hades 5 unadmitted to the rites, and uninitiated, shall lie in the slough, while he who arrives there purified and initiated shall dwell with gods. For truly there are, so say those concerned with the initiations, "many who bear the wand, but few who are devotees". Now these latter, in my d view, are none other than those who have practised philosophy aright. And it's to be among them that I myself have striven, in every way I could, neglecting nothing during my life within my power. Whether I have striven aright and we have achieved anything, 5 we shall, I think, know for certain, God willing, in a little while, on arrival yonder.

'There's my defence, then, Simmias and Cebes, to show how reasonable it is for me not to take it hard or be resentful at leaving e you and my masters here, since I believe that there also, no less than here, I shall find good masters and companions; so if I'm any more convincing in my defence to you than to the Athenian jury, it would be well.' 5

When Socrates had said this, Cebes rejoined: 'The other things you say, Socrates, I find excellent; but what you say about the soul is the subject of much disbelief: men fear that when it's been separ- 70 ated from the body, it may no longer exist anywhere, but that on the very day a man dies, it may be destroyed and perish, as soon as it's separated from the body; and that as it goes out, it may be dis­persed like breath or smoke, go flying off, and exist no longer any- 5 where at all. True, if it did exist somewhere, gathered together alone by itself, and separated from those evils you were recounting just now, there'd be plenty of hope, Socrates, and a fine hope it would be, that what you say is true; but on just this point, perhaps, one b needs no little reassuring and convincing, that when the man has died, his soul exists, and that it possesses some power and wisdom.'¹⁴

'That's true, Cebes,' said Socrates; 'but then what are we to do? 5 Would you like us to speculate¹⁵ on these very questions, and see whether this is likely to be the case or not?'

'For my part anyway,' said Cebes, 'I'd gladly hear whatever opinion you have about them.' 10 'Well,' said Socrates, 'I really don't think anyone listening now, c even if he were a comic poet, would say that I'm talking idly, and arguing about things that don't concern me. If you agree, then, we should look into the matter.

'Let's consider it, perhaps, in this way: do the souls of men exist 5 in Hades when they have died, or do they not? Now there's an ancient doctrine, which we've recalled,¹⁶ that they do exist in that world, entering it from this one, and that they re-enter this world and are born again from the dead; yet if this is so, if living people are born again from those who have died, surely our souls would have to d exist in that world? Because they could hardly be born again, if they didn't exist;¹⁷ so it would be sufficient evidence for the truth of these claims, if it really became plain that living people are born from the dead and from nowhere else; but if that isn't so, some other argu- 5 ment would be needed.'

'Certainly,' said Cebes.

'Well now, consider the matter, if you want to understand more readily, in connection not only with mankind, but with all animals and plants; and, in general, for all things subject to coming-to-be, let's e see whether everything comes to be in this way: opposites come to be only from their opposites—in the case of all things that actually have an opposite—as, for example, the beautiful is opposite, of course, to the ugly, just to unjust, and so on in countless other cases. So let's consider this: is it necessary that whatever has an 5 opposite comes to be only from its opposite? For example, when a thing comes to be larger, it must, surely, come to be larger from being smaller before?'

'Yes.'

10 'And again, if it comes to be smaller, it will come to be smaller 71 later from being larger before?'

'That's so.'

'And that which is weaker comes to be, presumably, from a stronger, and that which is faster from a slower?' 5 'Certainly.'

'And again, if a thing comes to be worse, it's from a better, and

if more just, from a more unjust?'

'Of course.'

'Are we satisfied, then, that all things come to be in this way, opposite things from opposites?'

'Certainly.'

'Now again, do these things have a further feature of this sort: between the members of every pair of opposites, since they are two, aren't there two processes of coming-to-be, from one to the other, and back again from the latter to the former? Thus,¹⁸ between a larger thing and a smaller, isn't there increase and decrease, so that in the one case we speak of "increasing" and in the other of "decreasing"?'

'Yes.'

'And similarly with separating and combining, cooling and heating, and all such; even if in some cases we don't use the names, still in actual fact mustn't the same principle everywhere hold good: they come to be from each other, and there's a process of coming-to-be of each into the other?'

'Certainly.'

'Well then, is there an opposite to living, as sleeping is opposite to being awake?'

'Certainly.'

'What is it?'

'Being dead.'

'Then these come to be from each other, if they are opposites; and between the pair of them, since they are two, the processes of coming-to-be are two?'

'Of course.'

'Now then,' said Socrates, 'I'll tell you one of the couples I was just mentioning, the couple itself and its processes; and you tell me the other. My couple is sleeping and being awake: being awake comes to be from sleeping, and sleeping from being awake, and their processes are going to sleep and waking up. Is that sufficient for you or not?'

'Certainly.'

'Now it's for you to tell me in the same way about life and death. You say, don't you, that being dead is opposite to living?'

'I do.'

'And that they come to be from each other?' 'Yes.'

10 'Then what is it that comes to be from that which is living?' 'That which is dead.'

'And what comes to be from that which is dead?' 'I must admit that it's that which is living.' 'Then it's from those that are dead, Cebes, that living things 15 and living people are born?' e 'Apparently.'

'Then our souls do exist in Hades.' 'So it seems.'

'Now one of the relevant processes here is obvious, isn't it? For 5 dying is obvious enough, surely?' 'It certainly is.'

'What shall we do then? Shan't we assign the opposite process to balance it? Will nature be lame in this respect? Or must we supply 10 some process opposite to dying?' 'We surely must.' 'What will this be?' 'Coming to life again.'

'Then if there is such a thing as coming to life again, wouldn't 72 this, coming to life again, be a process from dead to living people?' 'Certainly.'

'In that way too, then, we're agreed that living people are born 5 from the dead no less than dead people from the living; and we thought that, if this were the case, it would be sufficient evidence that the souls of the dead must exist somewhere, whence they are born again.'

10 'I think, Socrates, that that must follow from our admissions.' 'Then look at it this way, Cebes, and you'll see, I think, that our admissions were not mistaken. If there were not perpetual recip- b rocity in coming to be, between one set of things and another, revolving in a circle, as it were—if, instead, coming-to-be were a linear process from one thing into its opposite only, without any bending back in the other direction or reversal, do you realize that all things 5 would ultimately have the same form: the same fate would overtake

them, and they would cease from coming to be?'

'What do you mean?'

'It's not at all hard to understand what I mean. If, for example, there were such a thing as going to sleep, but from sleeping there were no reverse process of waking up, you realize that everything would ultimately make Endymion seem a mere trifle: he'd be nowhere, because the same fate as his, sleeping, would have over­taken everything else. Again, if everything were combined, but not separated, then Anaxagoras' notion of "all things together" would soon be realized. And similarly, my dear Cebes, if all things that partake in life were to die, but when they'd died, the dead remained in that form, and didn't come back to life, wouldn't it be quite inevitable that everything would ultimately be dead, and nothing would live? Because if the living things came to be from,the other things, but the living things were to die, what could possibly prevent everything from being completely spent in being dead?'

'Nothing whatever, in my view, Socrates,' said Cebes; 'what you say seems to be perfectly true.'

'Yes, it certainly is true, Cebes, as I see it; and we're not deceived in making just those admissions: there really is such a thing as coming to life again, living people are born from the dead, and the souls of the dead exist.'

'Yes, and besides, Socrates,' Cebes replied, 'there's also that theory you're always putting forward, that our learning is actually nothing but recollection; according to that too, if it's true, what we are now reminded of we must have learned at some former time. But that would be impossible, unless our souls existed somewhere before being born in this human form; so in this way too, it appears that the soul is something immortal.'

'Yes, what are the proofs of those points, Cebes?' put in Simmias. 'Remind me, as I don't recall them very well at the moment.'

'One excellent argument,'¹⁹ said Cebes, 'is that when people are questioned, and if the questions are well put, they state the truth about everything for themselves—and yet unless knowledge and a correct account were present within them, they'd be unable to do this; thus, if one takes them to diagrams or anything else of that sort,

one has there the plainest evidence that this is so.'

'But if that doesn't convince you, Simmias,' said Socrates, 'then see whether maybe you agree if you look at it this way. Apparently 5 you doubt whether what is called "learning" is recollection?'

'I don't doubt it,' said Simmias; 'but I do need to undergo just what the argument is about, to be "reminded". Actually, from the way Cebes set about stating it, I do almost recall it and am nearly convinced; but I'd like, none the less, to hear now how you set about 10 stating it yourself.'

c 'I'll put it this way. We agree, I take it, that if anyone is to be reminded of a thing, he must have known that thing at some time previously.'

'Certainly.'

'Then do we also agree on this point: that whenever knowledge 5 comes to be present in this sort of way, it is recollection? I mean in some such way as this:²⁰ if someone, on seeing a thing, or hearing it, or getting any other sense-perception of it, not only recognizes that thing, but also thinks of something else, which is the object not of the same knowledge but of another, don't we then rightly say that d he's been "reminded" of the object of which he has got the thought?'

'What do you mean?'

'Take the following examples: knowledge of a man, surely, is other than that of a lyre?'

'Of course.'

5 'Well now, you know what happens to lovers, whenever they see a lyre or cloak or anything else their loves are accustomed to use: they recognize the lyre, and they get in their mind, don't they, the form of the boy whose lyre it is? And that is recollection. Likewise, someone seeing Simmias is often reminded of Cebes, and there'd 10 surely be countless other such cases.'

'Countless indeed!' said Simmias. e 'Then is something of that sort a kind of recollection? More especially, though, whenever it happens to someone in connection with things he's since forgotten, through lapse of time or inattention?'

'Certainly.'

5 'Again now, is it possible, on seeing a horse depicted or. a lyre depicted, to be reminded of a man; and on seeing Simmias depicted,

to be reminded of Cebes?' 'Certainly.'

10 74

'And also, on seeing Simmias depicted, to be reminded of

Simmias himself?' 'Yes, that's possible.'

'In all these cases, then, doesn't it turn out that there is recoll­ection from similar things, but also from dissimilar things?'

'It does.'

'But whenever one is reminded of something from similar things, 5 mustn't one experience something further: mustn't one think whether or not the thing is lacking at all, in its similarity, in relation to what one is reminded of?'

'One must.'

'Then consider whether this is the case. We say, don't we, that there is something equal—I don't mean a log to a log, or a stone to a 10 stone, or anything else of that sort, but some further thing beyond all those, the equal itself: are we to say that there is something or nothing?'

'We most certainly are to say that there is,' said Simmias; b 'unquestionably!'

'And do we know what it is?'²¹

'Certainly.'

'Where did we get the knowledge of it? Wasn't it from the things we were just mentioning: on seeing logs or stones or other 5 equal things, wasn't it from these that we thought of that object, it being different from them? Or doesn't it seem different to you? Look at it this way: don't equal stones and logs, the very same ones, sometimes seem equal to one, but not to another?'²²

'Yes, certainly.' 10

'But now, did the equals themselves ever seem to you unequal, or c equality inequality?'

'Never yet, Socrates.'

'Then those equals, and the equal itself, are not the same.' 5

'By no means, Socrates, in my view.'

'But still, it is from those equals, different as they are from that equal, that you have thought of and got the knowledge of it?'

'That's perfectly true.' . 10

'It being either similar to them or dissimilar?'

'Certainly.'

'Anyway, it makes no difference; so long as²³ on seeing one thing, d one does, from this sight, think of another, whether it be similar or dissimilar, this must be recollection.'

'Certainly.'

'Well now, with regard to the instances in the logs, and, in general, 5 the equals we mentioned just now, are we affected in some way as this: do they seem to us to be equal in the same way as what it is itself?²⁴ Do they fall short of it at all in being like the equal, or not?'

'Very far short of it.'

'Then whenever anyone, on seeing a thing, thinks to himself, "this 10 thing that I now see seeks to be like another of the things that e are, but falls short, and cannot be like that object: it is inferior", do we agree that the man who thinks this must previously have known the object he says it resembles but falls short of?' 5 'He must.'

'Now then, have we ourselves been affected in just this way, or not, with regard to the equals and the equal itself?'

'Indeed we have.'

'Then we must previously have known the equal, before that time 75 when we first, on seeing the equals, thought that all of them were striving to be like the equal but fell short of it.'

'That is so.'

5 'Yet we also agree on this: we haven't derived the thought of it, nor could we do so, from anywhere but seeing or touching or some other of the senses—I'm counting all these as the same.'

'Yes, they are the same, Socrates, for what the argument seeks 10 to show.'

'But of course it is from one's sense-perceptions that one must b think that all the things in the sense-perceptions are striving for what equal is,²⁵ yet are inferior to it; or how shall we put it?'

'Like that.'

'Then it must, surely, have been before we began to see and hear 5 and use the other senses that we got knowledge of the equal itself, of what it is,²⁶ if we were going to refer the equals from our sense- perceptions to it, supposing that²⁷ all things are doing their best to

be like it, but are inferior to it.'

'That must follow from what's been said before, Socrates.'

'Now we were seeing and hearing, and were possessed of our 10 other senses, weren't we, just as soon as we were born?'

'Certainly.'

'But we must, we're saying, have got our knowledge of the equal c before these?'

'Yes.'

'Then it seems that we must have got it before we were born.' 5

'It seems so.'

'Now if, having got it before birth, we were born in possession of it, did we know, both before birth and as soon as we were born, not only the equal, the larger and the smaller, but everything of that 10 sort? Because our present argument concerns the beautiful itself, and the good itself, and just and holy, no less than the equal; in fact, d as I say, it concerns everything on which we set this seal, "what it is",^2& in the questions we ask and in the answers we give. And so we must have got pieces of knowledge²⁹ of all those things before birth.' 5

'That is so.'

'Moreover, if having got them, we did not on each occasion forget them, we must always be born knowing, and must continue to know throughout life: because this is knowing—to possess know­ledge one has got of something, and not to have lost it; or isn't loss 10 of knowledge what we mean by "forgetting", Simmias?'

'Certainly it is, Socrates.' e

'But on the other hand, I suppose that if, having got them before birth, we lost them on being born, and later on, using the senses about the things in question, we regain those pieces of knowledge that we possessed at some former time, in that case wouldn't what we call "learning" be the regaining of knowledge belonging to us? 5 And in saying that this was being reminded, shouldn't we be speaking correctly?'

'Certainly.'

'Yes, because it did seem possible, on sensing an object, whether 76 by seeing or hearing or getting some other sense-perception of it, to think from this of some other thing one had forgotten—either a thing to which the object, though dissimilar to it, was related, or

else something to which it was similar; so, as I say, one of two things is true: either all of us were born knowing those objects, and we know them throughout life; or those we speak of as "learning" are simply being reminded later on, and learning would be recollection.'

'That's quite true, Socrates.'

'Then which do you choose, Simmias? That we are born knowing, or that we are later reminded of the things we'd gained knowledge of before?'

'At the moment, Socrates, I can't make a choice.'

'Well, can you make one on the following point, and what do you think about it? If a man knows things, can he give an account of what he knows or not?'

'Of course he can, Socrates.'

'And do you think everyone can give an account of those objects we were discussing just now?'

'I only wish they could,' said Simmias; 'but I'm afraid that, on the contrary, this time tomorrow there may no longer be any man who can do so properly.'

'You don't then, Simmias, think that everyone knows those objects?'

'By no means.'

'Are they, then, reminded of what they once learned?'

'They must be.'

'When did our souls get the knowledge of those objects? Not, at any rate, since we were born as human beings.'

'Indeed not.'

'Earlier, then.'

'Yes.'

'Then our souls did exist earlier, Simmias, before entering human form, apart from bodies; and they possessed wisdom.'

'Unless maybe, Socrates, we get those pieces of knowledge at the very moment of birth; that time still remains.'

'Very well, my friend; but then at what other time, may I ask, do we lose them? We aren't born with them, as we agreed just now. Do we then lose them at the very time at which we get them? Or have you any other time to suggest?'

'None at all, Socrates. I didn't realize I was talking nonsense.'

'Then is our position as follows, Simmias? If the objects we're always harping on exist, a beautiful, and a good and all such Being, and if we refer all the things from our sense-perceptions to that Being, finding again what was formerly ours, and if we compare these things with that, then just as surely as those objects exist, so also must our soul exist before we are born. On the other hand, if they don't exist, this argument will have gone for nothing. Is this the position? Is it equally necessary that those objects exist, and that our souls existed before birth, and if the former don't exist, then neither did the latter?'

'It's abundantly clear to me, Socrates,' said Simmias, 'that there's the same necessity in either case, and the argument takes opportune refuge in the view that our soul exists before birth, just as surely as the Being of which you're now speaking. Because I myself find nothing so plain to me as that all such objects, beautiful and good and all the others you were speaking of just now, are in the fullest possible way; so in my view it's been adequately proved.'

'And what about Cebes?' said Socrates. 'We must convince Cebes too.'

'It's adequate for him, I think,' said Simmias; 'though he's the most obstinate of people when it comes to doubting arguments. But I think he's been sufficiently convinced that our soul existed before we were born. Whether it will still exist, however, after we've died, doesn't seem, even to me, to have been shown, Socrates; but the point Cebes made just now still stands—the popular fear that when a man dies, his soul may be dispersed at that time, and that that may be the end of its existence. Because what's to prevent it from coming to be and being put together from some other source, and from existing before it enters a human body, yet when it has entered one, and again been separated from it, from then meeting its end, and being itself destroyed?'

'You're right, Simmias,' said Cebes. 'It seems that half, as it were, of what is needed has been shown—that our soul existed before we were born; it must also be shown that it will exist after we've died, no less than before we were born, if the proof is going to be com­plete.'

'That's been proved already, Simmias and Cebes,' said Socrates, 'if you will combine this argument with the one we agreed on earlier, to the effect that all that is living comes from that which is dead, d Because if the soul does have previous existence, and if when it enters upon living and being born, it must come from no other source than death and being dead, surely it must also exist after it has died, given that it has to be born again? So your point has been 5 proved already. But even so, 1 think you and Simmias would like to thrash out this argument still further; you seem afraid, like children, that as the soul goes out from the body, the wind may literally blow e it apart and disperse it, especially when someone happens not to die in calm weather but in a high wind.'

Cebes laughed at this, and said: 'Try to reassure us, Socrates, as if we were afraid; or rather, not as if we were afraid ourselves—but may- 5 be there's a child inside us, who has fears of that sort. Try to persuade him, then, to stop being afraid of death, as if it were a bogey-man.'

'Well, you must sing spells to him every day,' said Socrates, 'till you've charmed it out of him.' 78 'And where', he said, 'shall we find a charmer for such fears, Socrates, now that you're leaving us?'

'Greece is a large country, Cebes, which has good men in it, I suppose; and there are many foreign races too. You must ransack 5 all of them in search of such a charmer, sparing neither money nor trouble, because there's no object on which you could more opport­unely spend your money. And you yourselves must search too, along with one another; you may not easily find anyone more capable of doing this than yourselves.' 10 'That shall certainly be done,' said Cebes; 'but let's go back to the b point where we left off, if you've no objection.'

'Of course not; why should I?'

'Good.'

'Well then,' said Socrates, 'mustn't we ask ourselves something 5 like this: What kind of thing is liable to undergo this fate—namely, dispersal—and for what kind of thing should we fear lest it undergo it? And what kind of thing is not liable to it? And next, mustn't we

further ask to which of these two kinds soul belongs, and then feel either confidence or fear for our own soul accordingly?'

That's true.'

'Then is it true that what has been put together and is naturally c composite is liable to undergo this,³⁰ to break up at the point at which it was put together; whereas if there be anything incomposite, it alone is liable, if anything is, to escape this?'

'That's what I think,' said Cebes.

'Well now, aren't the things that are constant and unvarying most likely to be the incomposite, whereas things that vary and are never constant are likely to be composite?'

'I think so.'

'Then let's go back to those entities to which we turned in 10 our earlier argument. Is the Being itself, whose being we give an d account of in asking and answering questions, unvarying and con­stant, or does it vary? Does the equal itself, the beautiful itself, what each thing is³¹ itself, that which is,³² ever admit of any change whatever? Or does what each of them is, being uniform alone by 5 itself, remain unvarying and constant, and never admit of any kind of alteration in any way or respect whatever?'

'It must be unvarying and constant, Socrates,' said Cebes.

'But what about the many beautiful things,³³ such as men or 10 horses or cloaks or anything else at all of that kind? Or equals, or all e things that bear the same name as those objects? Are they constant, or are they just the opposite of those others, and practically never constant at all, either in relation to themselves or to one another?'

'That is their condition,' said Cebes; 'they are never unvarying.' 5

'Now these things you could actually touch and see and sense 79 with the other senses, couldn't you, whereas those that are constant you could lay hold of only by reasoning of the intellect; aren't such things, rather, invisible and not seen?'

'What you say is perfectly true.' 5

'Then would you like us to posit two kinds of beings,³⁴ the one kind seen, the other invisible?'

'Let's posit them.'

5

'And the invisible is always constant, whereas the seen is never constant?' 10

'Let's posit that too.' b 'Well, but we ourselves are part body and part soul, aren't we?'

'We are.'

'Then to which kind do we say that the body will be more 5 similar and more akin?'

'That's clear to anyone: obviously to the seen.'

'And what about the soul? Is it seen or invisible?'

'It's not seen by men, at any rate, Socrates.'

'But we meant, surely, things seen and not seen with reference 10 to human nature; or do you think we meant any other?'

'We meant human nature.'

'What do we say about soul, then? Is it seen or unseen?'

'It's not seen.'

'Then it's invisible?' 15 'Yes.'

'Then soul is more similar than body to the invisible, whereas body is more similar to that which is seen.' c 'That must be so, Socrates.'

'Now weren't we saying a while ago that whenever the soul uses the body as a means to study anything, either by seeing or hearing or any other sense-because to use the body as a means is to study 5 a thing through sense-perception—then it is dragged by the body towards objects that are never constant; and it wanders about itself, and is confused and dizzy, as if drunk, in virtue of contact with things of a similar kind?'

'Certainly.'

d 'Whereas whenever it studies alone by itself, it departs yonder towards that which is pure and always existent and immortal and unvarying, and in virtue of its kinship with it, enters always into its company, whenever it has come to be alone by itself, and whenever 5 it may do so; then it has ceased from its wandering and, when it is about those objects, it is always constant and unvarying, because of its contact with things of a similar kind; and this condition of it is called "wisdom", is it not?'

'That's very well said and perfectly true, Socrates.'

'Once again, then, in the light of our earlier and present arguments, e to which kind do you think that soul is more similar and more akin?'

'Everyone, I think, Socrates, even the slowest learner, following this line,of inquiry, would agree that soul is totally and altogether more similar to what is unvarying than to what is not.' 5

'And what about the body?'

'That is more like the latter.'

'Now look at it this way too: when soul and body are present in the same thing, nature ordains that the one shall serve and be 80 ruled, whereas the other shall rule and be master; here again, which do you think is similar to the divine and which to the mortal? Don't you think the divine is naturally adapted for ruling and domin­ation, whereas the mortal is adapted for being ruled and for service?' 5

'I do.'

'Which kind, then, does the soul resemble?'

'Obviously, Socrates, the soul resembles the divine, and the body the mortal.'

'Consider, then, Cebes, if these are our conclusions from all that's 10 been said: soul is most similar to what is divine, immortal, intelli- b gible, uniform, indissoluble, unvarying, and constant in relation to itself; whereas body, in its turn, is most similar to what is human, mortal, multiform, non-intelligible, dissoluble, and never constant 5 in relation to itself. Have we anything to say against those state­ments, my dear Cebes, to show that they're false?'

'We haven't.'

'Well then, that being so, isn't body liable to be quickly dissolved, whereas soul must be completely indissoluble, or something close 10 to it?'

'Of course.' c

'Now you're aware that when a man has died, the part of him that's seen, his body, which is situated in the seen world, the corpse as we call it, although liable to be dissolved and fall apart and to disintegrate, undergoes none of these things at once, but remains as 5 it is for a fairly long time—in fact for a very considerable time,³⁵ even if someone dies with his body in beautiful condition, and in the flower of youth; why, the body that is shrunken and embalmed, like those who've been embalmed in Egypt, remains almost entire for an immensely long time; and even should the body decay, some parts of d it, bones and sinews and all such things, are still practically immortal;

isn't that so?'

'Yes.'

5 'Can it be, then, that the soul, the invisible part, which goes to another place of that kind, noble, pure and invisible, to "Hades" in the true sense of the word, into the presence of the good and wise God—where, God willing, my own soul too must shortly enter—can it be that this, which we've found to be a thing of such a kind and 10 nature, should on separation from the body at once be blown e apart and perish, as most men say? Far from it, my dear Cebes and Simmias; rather, the truth is far more like this: suppose it is separated in purity, while trailing nothing of the body with it, since it had no avoidable commerce with it during life, but shunned 5 it; suppose too that it has been gathered together alone into itself, since it always cultivated this—nothing else but the right practice of 81 philosophy, in fact, the cultivation of dying without complaint- wouldn't this be the cultivation of death?'

'It certainly would.'

'If it is in that state, then, does it not depart to the invisible, 5 which is similar to it, the divine and immortal and wise; and on arrival there, isn't its lot to be happy, released from its wandering and folly, its fears and wild lusts, and other ills of the human condition, and as is said of the initiated, does it not pass the rest of 10 time in very truth with gods? Are we to say this, Cebes, or something else?'

'This, most certainly!' said Cebes. b 'Whereas, I imagine, if it is separated from the body when it has been polluted and made impure, because it has always been with the body, has served and loved it, and been so bewitched by it, by its passions and pleasures, that it thinks nothing else real save what is 5 corporeal—what can be touched and seen, drunk and eaten, or used for sexual enjoyment—yet it has been accustomed to hate and shun and tremble before what is obscure to the eyes and invisible, but c intelligible and grasped by philosophy; do you think a soul in that condition will separate unsullied, and alone by itself?'

'By no means.'

'Rather, I imagine, it will have been interspersed with a corporeal 5 element, ingrained in it by the body's company and intercourse,

through constant association and much training?'

'Certainly.'

'And one must suppose, my friend, that this element is ponderous, that it is heavy and earthy and is seen; and thus encumbered, such a soul is weighed down, and dragged back into the region of the seen, 10 through fear of the invisible and of Hades; and it roams among tombs and graves, so it is said, around which some shadowy phantoms of d souls have actually been seen, such wraiths as souls of that kind afford, souls that have been released in no pure condition, but while partaking in the seen; and that is just why they are seen.'

'That's likely, Socrates.' 5

'It is indeed, Cebes; and they're likely to be the souls not of the good but of the wicked, that are compelled to wander about such places, paying the penalty for their former nurture, evil as it was. And they wander about until, owing to the desire of the corporeal element attendant upon them, they are once more imprisoned in a e body; and they're likely to be imprisoned in whatever types of character they may have cultivated in their lifetime.'

'What types can you mean, Socrates?'

'Those who have cultivated gluttony, for example, and lechery, 5 and drunkenness, and have taken no pains to avoid them, are likely to enter the forms of donkeys and animals of that sort. 82 Don't you think so?'

'What you say is very likely.'

'Yes, and those who've preferred injustice, tyranny, and robbery will enter the forms of wolves and hawks and kites. Where else can we say that such souls will go?' 5

'Into such creatures, certainly,' said Cebes.

'And isn't the direction taken by the others as well obvious in each case, according to the affinities of their training?'

'Quite obvious, of course.'

'And aren't the happiest among these and the ones who enter the 10 best place, those who have practised popular and social goodness, b "temperance" and "justice" so-called, developed from habit and training, but devoid of philosophy and intelligence?'

'In what way are these happiest?'

'Because they're likely to go back into a race of tame and social 5

creatures similar to their kind, bees perhaps, or wasps or ants; and to return to the human race again, and be born from those kinds as decent men.'

'That's likely.'

10 'But the company of gods may not rightly be joined by one who c has not practised philosophy and departed in absolute purity, by any but the lover of knowledge. It's for these reasons, Simmias and Cebes, my friends, that true philosophers abstain from all bodily desires, and stand firm without surrendering to them; it's not for any fear of 5 poverty or loss of estate, as with most men who are lovers of riches; nor again do they abstain through dread of dishonour or ill-repute attaching to wickedness, like lovers of power and prestige.'

'No, that would ill become them, Socrates,' said Cebes. d 'Most certainly it would! And that, Cebes, is just why those who have any care for their own souls, and don't live fashioning the body,³⁶ disregard all those people; they do not walk in the same paths as those who, in their view, don't know where they are 5 going; but they themselves believe that their actions must not oppose philosophy, or the release and purifying rite it affords, and they are turned to follow it, in the direction in which it guides them.'

'How so, Socrates?'

'I'll tell you. Lovers of knowledge recognize that when philosophy e takes their soul in hand, it has been literally bound and glued to the body, and is forced to view the things that are as if through a prison, rather than alone by itself; and that it is wallowing in utter 5 ignorance. Now philosophy discerns the cunning of the prison, sees how it is effected through desire, so that the captive himself may 83 co-operate most of all in his imprisonment.³⁷ As I say, then, lovers of knowledge recognize that their soul is in that state when philo­sophy takes it in hand, gently reassures it and tries to release it, by showing that inquiry through the eyes is full of deceit, and deceitful 5 too is inquiry through the ears and other senses; and by persuading it to withdraw from these, so far as it need not use them, and by urging it to collect and gather itself together, and to trust none b other but itself, whenever, alone by itself, it thinks of any of the things that are, alone by itself, and not to regard as real what it observes by other means, and what varies in various things; that kind

of thing is sensible and seen, whereas the object of its own vision is intelligible and invisible. It is, then, just because it believes it should 5 not oppose this release that the soul of the true philosopher abstains from pleasures and desires and pains,³⁸ so far as it can, reckoning that when one feels intense pleasure or fear, pain or desire, one incurs harm from them not merely to the extent that might be supposed— c by being ill, for example, or spending money to satisfy one's desires— but one incurs the greatest and most extreme of all evils, and does not take it into account.'

'And what is that, Socrates?' said Cebes.

'It's that the soul of every man, when intensely pleased or 5 pained at something, is forced at the same time to suppose that whatever most affects it in this way is most clear and most real, when it is not so; and such objects especially are things seen, aren't they?'

'Certainly.'

'Well, isn't it in this experience that soul is most thoroughly d bound fast by body?'

'How so?'

'Because each pleasure and pain fastens it to the body with a sort of rivet, pins it there, and makes it corporeal, so that it takes for real 5 whatever the body declares to be so. Since by sharing opinions and pleasures with the body, it is, I believe, forced to become of like character and nurture to it, and to be incapable of entering Hades in purity; but it must always exit contaminated by the body, and so 10 quickly fall back into another body, and grow in it as if sown there, e and so have no part in communion with the divine and pure and uniform.'

'What you say is perfectly true, Socrates,' said Cebes.

'It's for these reasons, then, Cebes, that those who deserve to be 5 called "lovers of knowledge" are orderly and brave; it's not for the reasons that count with most people;³⁹ or do you think it is?'

'No, indeed I don't.' 84

'Indeed not; but the soul of a philosophic man would reason as we've said: it would not think that while philosophy should release it, yet on being released, it should of itself surrender to pleasures and pains, to bind it to the body once again, and should perform the 5

endless task of a Penelope working in reverse at a kind of web.⁴⁰ Rather, securing rest from these feelings, by following reasoning and being ever within it, and by beholding what is true and divine and not the object of opinion, and being nurtured by it, it believes that it must live thus for as long as it lives, and that when it has died, it will enter that which is akin and of like nature to itself, and be rid of human ills. With that kind of nurture, surely, Simmias and Cebes, there's no danger of its fearing that on separation from the body it may be rent apart, blown away by winds, go flying off, and exist no longer anywhere at all.'

When Socrates had said this, there was silence for a long time. To judge from his appearance, Socrates himself was absorbed in the foregoing argument, and so were most of us; but Cebes and Simmias went on talking to each other in a low voice ⁴¹ When he noticed them, Socrates asked: 'What is it? Can it be that you find something lacking in what's been said? It certainly still leaves room for many misgivings and objections, if, that is, one's going to examine it adequately. If it's something else you're considering, never mind; but if you have some difficulty about these matters, don't hesitate to speak for yourselves and explain it, if you think what was said could be improved in any way;⁴² or again, enlist me too, if you think you'll get out of your difficulty any better with my help.'

Simmias replied: 'All right, Socrates, I'll tell you the truth. For some time each of us has had difficulties, and has been prompting and telling the other to question you, from eagerness to hear, but hesitating to make trouble, in case you should find it unwelcome in your present misfortune.'

When Socrates heard this, he chuckled and said: 'Dear me, Simmias! I'd certainly find it hard to convince other people that I don't regard my present lot as a misfortune, when I can't convince even you two, but you're afraid that I'm more ill-humoured now than in my earlier life; you must, it seems, think I have a poorer power of prophecy than the swans, who when they realize they must die, then sing more fully and sweetly than they've ever sung before, for joy that they are departing into the presence of the god whose servants they are. Though indeed mankind, because of their own

fear of death, malign the swans, and say that they sing their farewell song in distress, lamenting their death; they don't reflect that no 5 bird sings when it is hungry or cold or suffering any other distress, not even the nightingale herself, nor the swallow, nor the hoopoe, birds that are reputed to sing lamentations from distress. But, as I see it, neither they nor the swans sing in distress, but rather, I believe, b because, belonging as they do to Apollo, they are prophetic birds with foreknowledge of the blessings of Hades, and therefore sing and rejoice more greatly on that day than ever before. Now I hold that I myself am a fellow-servant of the swans, consecrated to the 5 same god, that I possess prophetic power from my master no less than theirs, and that I'm departing this life with as good a cheer as they do. No; so far as that goes, you should say and ask whatever you wish, for as long as eleven Athenian gentlemen allow.'

'Thank you,' said Simmias; 'then I'll tell you my difficulty, and 10 Cebes here in his turn will say where he doesn't accept what's been c said. I think, Socrates, as perhaps you do too, that in these matters certain knowledge is either impossible or very hard to come by in this life; but that even so, not to test what is said about them in every possible way, without leaving off till one has examined them 5 exhaustively from every aspect, shows a very feeble spirit; on these questions one must achieve one of two things: either learn or find out how things are; or, if that's impossible, then adopt the best and least refutable of human doctrines, embarking on it as a kind of raft, d and risking the dangers of the voyage through life, unless one could travel more safely and with less risk, on a securer conveyance afforded by some divine doctrine. So now I shan't scruple to put my question, since you tell me to, and then I shan't reproach myself 5 at a later time for failing to speak my mind now. In my view, Socrates, when I examine what's been said, either alone or with Cebes here, it doesn't seem altogether adequate.' 10

'Maybe your view is correct, my friend,' said Socrates; 'but tell e me, in what way inadequate?'

'I think in this way,' he said; 'one could surely use the same argument about the attunement of a lyre and its strings, and say that the attunement is something unseen and incorporeal and very lovely 5 and divine in the tuned lyre, while the lyre itself and its strings are 86

corporeal bodies and composite and earthy and akin to the mortal. Now, if someone smashed the lyre, or severed and snapped its strings, suppose it were maintained, by the same argument as yours, that the attunement must still exist and not have perished—because it would be inconceivable that when the strings had been snapped, the lyre and the strings themselves, which are of mortal nature, should still exist, and yet that the attunement, which has affinity and kinship to the divine and the immortal, should have perished— and perished before the mortal; rather, it might be said, the attune­ment itself must still exist somewhere, and the wood and the strings would have to rot away before anything happened to it. And in point of fact, Socrates, my own belief is that you're aware yourself that something of this sort is what we actually take the soul to be: our body is kept in tension, as it were, and held together by hot and cold, dry and wet, and the like, and our soul is a blending and attunement of these same things, when they're blended with each other in due proportion. If, then, the soul proves to be some kind of attunement, it's clear that when our body is unduly relaxed or tautened by illnesses and other troubles, then the soul must perish at once, no matter how divine it may be, just like other attunements, those in musical notes and in all the products of craftsmen; whereas the remains of each body will last for a long time, until they're burnt up or rot away. Well, consider what we shall say in answer to that argument, if anyone should claim that the soul, being a blending of the bodily elements, is the first thing to perish in what is called death.'

At this Socrates looked at us wide-eyed, as he often used to, and said with a smile: 'Simmias' remarks are certainly fair. So if any of you is more resourceful than I am, why doesn't he answer him? Because he really seems to be coming to grips with the argument in no mean fashion. However, before answering I think we should first hear from Cebes here what further charge he has to bring against the argument, so that in the intervening period we may be thinking what to say; then, when we've heard them both, either we can agree with them, if it seems they're at all in tune; or if not, we can enter a plea for the argument at that point. Come on then, Cebes, tell us what's been troubling you.'

'I certainly will,' said Cebes. 'You see, the argument seems to me to remain where it was, and to be open to the same charge as we made before. As to the existence of our soul even before it entered 87 its present form, I don't take back my admission that this has been very neatly, and, if it's not presumptuous to say so, very adequately proved; but I don't think the same about its still existing somewhere when we've died. Not that I agree with Simmias' objection that soul 5 isn't stronger and longer-lived than body: because I think it far superior in all those ways. "Why then", the argument would say, "are you still in doubt, when you can see that the weaker part still exists after the man has died? Don't you think the longer-lived part b must still be preserved during that time?"

'Well, consider if there's anything in my reply to that; because it seems that, like Simmias, I too need an image. What's being said, I think, is very much as if someone should offer this argument about a man—a weaver who has died in old age—to show that the man hasn't 5 perished but exists somewhere intact, and should produce as evidence the fact that the cloak he had woven for himself, and worn, was intact and had not perished; and if anyone doubted him, he should c ask which class of thing is longer-lived, a man, or a cloak in constant use and wear; and on being answered that a man is much longer- lived, should think it had been proved that the man must therefore surely be intact, seeing that something shorter-lived hadn't perished. 5 Yet in fact, Simmias, this isn't so: because you too must consider what I'm saying. Everyone would object that this is a simple-minded argument. Because this weaver, though he'd woven and worn out many such cloaks, perished after all of them, despite their number, d but still, presumably, before the last one; and yet for all that a man is neither lesser nor weaker than a cloak.

'The relation of soul to body would, I think, admit of the same comparison: anyone making the same points about them, that the soul is long-lived, while the body is weaker and shorter-lived, would 5 in my view argue reasonably; true indeed, he might say, every soul wears out many bodies, especially in a life of many years—because, though the body may decay and perish while the man is still alive, still the soul will always weave afresh what's being worn out; never- e theless, when the soul does perish, it will have to be wearing its last

garment, and must perish before that one alone; and when the soul 5 has perished, then at last the body will reveal its natural weakness, moulder away quickly, and be gone. So we've no right as yet to 88 trust this argument, and feel confident that our soul still exists somewhere after we've died. Indeed, were one to grant the speaker even more than what you say,⁴³ allowing him not only that our souls existed in the time before we were born, but that nothing prevents 5 the souls of some, even after we've died, from still existing and continuing to exist, and from being bo,rn and dying over and over again—because soul is so strong by nature that it can endure repeated births—even allowing all that, were one not to grant the further point that it does not suffer in its many births, and does not end by 10 perishing completely in one of its deaths, and were one to say that b no one can know this death or detachment from the body which brings perishing to the soul—since none of us can possibly perceive it—well, if that's the case, then anyone who's confident in face of 5 death must be possessed of a foolish confidence, unless he can prove that soul is completely immortal and imperishable; otherwise, anyone about to die must always fear for his own soul, lest in its present disjunction from the body it perish completely.'

c All of us who heard them were disagreeably affected by their words, as we afterwards told one another: we'd been completely convinced by the earlier argument, yet now they seemed to disturb us again, and make us doubtful not only about the arguments already 5 put forward but also about points yet to be raised, for fear that we were incompetent judges of anything, or even that these things might be inherently doubtful.

Echecrates. Goodness, Phaedo, you have my sympathy. Because d now that I've heard you, it occurs to me to say to myself something like this: 'What argument shall we ever trust now? How thoroughly convincing was the argument that Socrates gave, yet now it's fallen into discredit.' This theory that our soul is a kind of attunement has 5 a strange hold on me, now as it always has done, so your statement of it has served to remind me that I'd formerly held this view myself. And I very much need some other argument that will convince me once again, as if from the start, that the soul of one who has died

doesn't die with him. So do please tell me how Socrates pursued the discussion. Did he become visibly troubled at all, as you say you were, or did he come quietly to the argument's help? And was his help adequate or deficient? Please relate everything to us, as minutely as you can.

Phaedo. Well, Echecrates, often as I've admired Socrates, I never found him more wonderful than when with him then. That he should have had an answer to give isn't, perhaps, surprising; but what I specially admired was, first, the pleasure, kindliness, and approval with which he received the young men's argument; next his acute- ness in perceiving how their speeches had affected us; and finally his success in treating us, rallying us as if we were fleeing in defeat, and encouraging us to follow him in examining the argument together. Echecrates. In what way?

Phaedo. I'll tell you. I happened to be sitting to his right, on a stool beside the bed, while he was a good way above me. Stroking my head and gathering the hair on my neck—it was his way now and again to make fun of my hair⁴⁴—he said: 'So tomorrow perhaps, Phaedo, you'll cut off those lovely locks.'

'I expect so, Socrates,' I replied.

'You won't, if you listen to me.'

'What then?' I asked.

'Today', he said, 'I'll cut mine and you yours—if, that is, the argument dies on us and we can't revive it. For myself, if I were you and the argument got away from me, I should swear an oath, like the Argives, not to grow my hair again till I'd fought back and defeated the argument of Simmias and Cebes.'

'But', I said, 'even Heracles is said to have been no match for two.'

'Then summon me as your Iolaus,' he said, 'while there's still light.'

'AH right,' I said, 'I summon you, not as if I were Heracles myself, but rather as Iolaus summoning Heracles.'

'That will make no difference,' he said. 'But first let's take care that a certain fate doesn't befall us.'

'What's that?' I asked.

'The fate of becoming "misologists", just as some become mis­anthropists; because there's no greater evil that could befall anyone

than this—the hating of arguments. "Misology" and misanthropy 5 both arise from the same source. Misanthropy develops when, without skill, one puts complete trust in somebody, thinking the man absolutely true and sound and reliable, and then a little later finds him bad and unreliable; and then this happens again with another person; and when it happens to someone often, especially e at the hands of those he'd regard as his nearest and dearest friends, he ends up, after repeated hard knocks, hating everyone, thinking there's no soundness whatever in anyone at all. Have you never noticed that happening?'

'I certainly have,' I said. 5 'Well, isn't it an ugly thing, and isn't it clear that such a man was setting about handling human beings, without any skill in human relations? Because if he handled them with skill, he'd surely have 90 recognized the truth, that extremely good and bad people are both very few in number, and the majority lie in between.'

'What do you mean?' I asked.

'It's the same as with extremely small and large things: do you 5 think anything is rarer than finding an extremely large or extremely small man, or dog, or anything else? Or again, one that's extremely fast or slow, ugly or beautiful, pale or dark?⁴⁵ Haven't you noticed that in all such cases extreme instances at either end are rare and few in number, whereas intermediate ones are plentiful and common?' 10 'Certainly,' I said.

b 'Don't you think, then, that if a contest in badness were promoted, there too those in the first class would be very few?'

'Probably,' I said.

'Yes, probably; though in that respect arguments aren't like men, 5 but I was following the lead you gave just now. The resemblance is found, rather, when someone who lacks skill in arguments, trusts some argument to be true, and then a little later it seems to him false, sometimes when it is, and sometimes when it isn't, and then the same thing happens with one argument after another-it is, as you c know, especially those who've spent all their time on antinomies, who end up thinking they've become extremely wise: they alone have discerned that there's nothing sound or secure whatever, either in things or arguments; but that all the things that are are carried up

and down, just like things fluctuating in the Euripus, and never 5 remain at rest for any time.'

'What you say is perfectly true,' I said.

'Then, Phaedo, it would be a pitiful fate, if there were in fact some true and secure argument, and one that could be discerned, yet d owing to association with arguments of the sort that seem now true and now false, a man blamed neither himself nor his own lack of skill, but finally relieved his distress by shifting the blame from himself to arguments, and then finished out the rest of his life 5 hating and abusing arguments, and was deprived both of the truth and of knowledge of the things that are.'⁴⁶

'Goodness, that certainly would be pitiful,' I said.

'Then let's guard against this first, and let's not admit into our soul the thought that there's probably nothing sound in arguments; e but let's far rather admit that we're not yet sound ourselves, but must strive manfully to become sound—you and the others for the sake of your whole future life, but I because of death itself; since 91 that very issue is one that I may not be facing as a philosopher should, but rather as one bent on victory, like those quite devoid of education. They too, when they dispute about something, care nothing for the truth of the matter under discussion, but are eager only that those present shall accept their own thesis. It seems to me 5 that on this occasion I shall differ from them only to this extent: my concern will not be, except perhaps incidentally, that what I say shall seem true to those present, but rather that it shall, as far as possible, seem so to myself. Because I reckon, my dear friend—watch b how anxious I am to score—that if what I say proves true, it's surely well to have been persuaded; whereas if there's nothing for a dead man, still, at least during this very time before my death, I'll distress those present less with lamentation, and this ignorance⁴⁷ of mine will 5 not persist-that would be a bad thing-but will in a little while be ended.

'Thus prepared, Simmias and Cebes, I advance against the argu­ment; but for your part, if you take my advice, you'll care little for Socrates but much more for the truth: if I seem to you to say c anything true, agree with it; but if not, resist it with every argument you can, taking care that in my zeal I don't deceive you and myself

5 alike, and go off like a bee leaving its sting behind.

'Well now, to proceed. First remind me of what you were saying, in case I prove not to have remembered. Simmias, I believe, is doubtful and afraid that the soul, though more divine and lovelier d than the body, may still perish before it, being a kind of attunement. Whereas Cebes, I thought, agreed with me in this much, that soul is longer-lived than body; but he held that no one could be sure whether 5 the soul, after wearing out many bodies time and again, might not then perish itself, leaving its last body behind, and whether death might not be just this, the perishing of soul—since body, of course, is perishing incessantly and never stops. Aren't those the points, Simmias and Cebes, that we have to consider?' e They both agreed that they were.

'Then do you reject all of the previous arguments, or only some of them?'

'Some of them,' they said, 'but not others.' 5 'Well what do you say, then, about the argument in which we said that learning was recollection, and that this being so, our souls must 92 exist somewhere else before being imprisoned in the body?'

'For my part,' said Cebes, 'I was wonderfully convinced by it at the time, and remain so now, as by no other argument.'

'And I'm of the same mind,' said Simmias; 'and I'd be very sur- 5 prised if I ever came to think otherwise about that.'

To this Socrates answered: 'But you'll have to think otherwise, my Theban friend, if you stick to this idea that attunement is a composite thing, and that soul is a kind of attunement composed of the bodily elements held in tension; because you surely won't allow b yourself to say that an attunement existed as a composite, before the elements of which it was to be composed; or will you?'

'Certainly not, Socrates.'

'Then do you see that this is implied by your assertion, when you 5 say that the soul exists before entering human form and body, yet that it is a composite of things that don't yet exist? Surely your attunement isn't, in fact, the same kind of thing as that to which you liken it: rather, the lyre, and its strings and notes, come into c being first, as yet untuned, whereas the attunement is put together last of all, and is the first to perish. So how's this theory of yours

going to harmonize with that one?'

'In no way,' said Simmias.

'Yet surely, if there's one theory that ought to be in harmony, it's 5 a theory about attunement.'

'So it ought,' said Simmias.

'Well, this one of yours isn't in harmony; but see which of the theories you prefer: that learning is recollection, or that soul is attunement.' 10

'The former, by a long way, Socrates. Because I acquired the latter without any proof, but from a certain likelihood⁴⁸ and d plausibility about it, whence its appeal for most people;⁴⁹ but I'm aware that arguments basing their proofs upon likelihoods are impostors, and if one doesn't guard against them, they completely deceive one, in geometry as well as in all other subjects. But the 5 argument about recollection and learning has come from a hypothesis worthy of acceptance. Because it was, of course, asserted that our soul existed even before it entered the body, just as surely as its object exists—the Being, bearing the name of "what it is";^so and this, I'm convinced, I have accepted rightly and for adequate reason. So e it would seem, consequently, that I must allow neither myself nor anyone else to say that soul is attunement.'

'Again now, look at it this way, Simmias. Do you think it befits an attunement, or any other compound, to be in any state other 93 than that of the elements of which it's composed?'

'Certainly not.'

'Nor yet, I presume, to act, or be acted upon, in any way differently from the way they may act or be acted upon?' 5

He assented.

'An attunement therefore should not properly direct the things of which it's composed, but should follow them.'

He agreed.

'Then an attunement can't possibly undergo contrary movement or utter sound or be opposed in any other way to its own parts.'

'It can't possibly.' 10

'Again now, isn't it natural for every attunement to be an attune­ment just as it's been tuned?'

'I don't understand.'

'Isn't it the case that if it's been tuned more and to a greater b extent,⁵¹ assuming that to be possible,⁵² it will be more an attune­ment and a greater one; whereas if less and to a smaller extent, it will be a lesser and smaller one?'

'Certainly.'

'Well, is this the case with soul—that even in the least degree, one 5 soul is either to a greater extent and more than another, or to a smaller extent and less, just itself-namely, a soul?'

'In no way whatever.'

'Well, but is one soul said to have intelligence and goodness and to be good, while another is said to have folly and wickedness and c to be bad? And are we right in saying those things?'

'Quite right.'

'Then what will any of those who maintain that soul is attune­ment say these things are, existing in our souls—goodness and bad- 5 ness? Are they, in turn, a further attunement and non-attunement? And is one soul, the good one, tuned, and does it have within itself, being an attunement, a further attunement, whereas the untuned one is just itself, and lacking a further attunement within it?'

'I couldn't say myself,' said Simmias; 'but obviously anyone 10 maintaining the hypothesis would say something of that sort.' d 'But it's already been agreed that no one soul is more or less a soul than another; and this is the admission that no one attunement is either more or to a greater extent, or less or to a smaller extent, an attunement than another.⁵³ Isn't that so?' 5 'Certainly.'

'But that which is neither more nor less an attunement has been neither more nor less tuned; is that so?'

'It is.'

'But does that which has been neither more nor less tuned 10 participate in attunement to a greater or to a smaller degree, or to an equal degree?'

'To an equal degree.'

'But then, given that no one soul is either more or less itself, e namely a soul, than another, it hasn't been more or less tuned either?'

'That is so.'

'And this being its condition, surely it couldn't participate more either in non-attunement or in attunement?'

'Indeed not.'

'And this again being its condition, could any one soul partici­pate to a greater extent than another in badness or goodness, assuming that badness is non-attunement, while goodness is attune­ment?'

'It couldn't.'

'Or rather, surely, following sound reasoning, Simmias, no soul will participate in badness, assuming it is attunement; because naturally an attunement, being completely itself, namely an attune­ment, could never participate in non-attunement.'

'No indeed.'

'Nor then, of course, could a soul, being completely a soul, participate in badness.'

'How could it, in view of what's already been said?'

'By this argument, then, we find that all souls of all living things will be equally good, assuming that it's the nature of souls to be equally themselves, namely souls.'

'So it seems to me, Socrates.'

'Yes, and do you approve of this assertion, or think this would happen to the argument, if the hypothesis that soul is attunement were correct?'

'Not in the least.'

'Again now, would you say that of all the things in a man it is anything but soul, especially if it's a wise one, that rules him?'⁵⁴

'I wouldn't.'

'Does it comply with the bodily feelings or does it oppose them? I mean, for example, when heat and thirst are in the body, by pulling the opposite way, away from drinking, and away from eating when it feels hunger; and surely in countless other ways we see the soul opposing bodily feelings, don't we?'

'We certainly do.'

'And again, didn't we agree earlier that if it is attunement, it would never utter notes opposed to the tensions, relaxations, strikings, and any other affections of its components, but would follow and never dominate them?'

'We did of course agree.'

'Well now, don't we find it, in fact, operating in just the opposite 10 way, dominating all those alleged sources of its existence, and d opposing them in almost everything throughout all of life, mastering them in all kinds of ways, sometimes disciplining more harshly and painfully with gymnastics and medicine, sometimes more mildly, now threatening and now admonishing, conversing with our appetites 5 and passions and fears, as if with a separate thing? That, surely, is the sort of thing Homer has represented in the Odyssey, where he says that Odysseus:

Striking his breast, reproved his heart with the words: e "Endure, my heart; e'en worse thou didst once endure."

Do you think he'd have composed that, with the idea that the soul was attunement, the sort of thing that could be led by the feelings of the body rather than something that could lead and master them, 5 being itself far too divine a thing to rank as attunement?'

'Goodness no, Socrates, I don't!'

'In no way at all then, my friend, do we approve of the thesis 95 that soul is a kind of attunement; because it seems that we should agree neither with the divine poet Homer nor with ourselves.'

'That is so.'

'Well then,' said Socrates, 'we seem to have placated the Theban 5 lady Harmonia moderately well; but now, how about the question of Cadmus? How and with what argument, Cebes, shall we placate him?'

'You'll find a way, I think,' said Cebes; 'at any rate this argument of yours against attunement has surprised me beyond expectation. Because when Simmias was speaking in his perplexity, I was very b much wondering if anyone would be able to handle his argument; so it seemed to me quite remarkable that it immediately failed to withstand the first assault of your own argument. Accordingly, I shouldn't wonder if the argument of Cadmus suffered the same fate.' 5 'No big talking, my friend,' said Socrates, 'in case some evil eye should turn the coming argument to rout. But that shall be God's concern; for ourselves, let's come to close quarters, in Homeric fashion, and try to see if, in fact, there's anything in what you say.

The sum and substance of what you're after is surely this: you want it proved that our soul is imperishable and immortal, if a philo- c sophic man about to die, confidently believing that after death he'll fare much better yonder than if he were ending a life lived differ­ently, isn't to be possessed of a senseless and foolish confidence. As for showing that the soul is something strong and god-like, and 5 existed even before we were born as men, nothing prevents all that, you say, from indicating not immortality, but only that soul is long-lived and existed somewhere for an immense length of time in the past, and knew and did all kinds of things; even so, it was none the more immortal for all that, but its very entry into a human body d was the beginning of its perishing, like an illness: it lives this life in distress, and finally perishes in what is called death. And, you say, it makes no difference, so far as our individual fears are concerned, whether it enters a body once or many times: anyone who neither 5 knows nor can give proof that it's immortal should be afraid, unless he has no sense.

'Something like this, Cebes, is what I think you're saying; and I'm e purposely reviewing it more than once, so that nothing may escape us, and so that you may add or take away anything you wish.'

To this Cebes replied: 'No, there's nothing at present that I 5 want to take away or add; those are my very points.'

Here Socrates paused for a long time examining something in his own mind. He then said: 'It's no trivial matter, this quest of yours, Cebes: it calls for a thorough inquiry into the whole question of the reason for coming-to-be and destruction.⁵⁵ So I will, if you like, 96 relate my own experiences on these matters: and then, if any of the things I say seem helpful to you, you can use them for conviction on the points you raise.'

'Well, I certainly should like that,' said Cebes. 5

'Then listen to my story. When I was young, Cebes, I was remark­ably keen on the kind of wisdom known as natural science;⁵⁶ it seemed to me splendid to know the reasons for each thing, why each thing comes to be, why it perishes, and why it exists. And I 10 was always shifting back and forth, examining, for a start, questions b like these: is it, as some said, whenever the hot and the cold give rise to putrefaction, that living creatures develop? And is it blood that

5 we think with, or air, or fire? Or is it none of these, but the brain that provides the senses of hearing and seeing and smelling, from which memory and judgement come to be; and is it from memory and judgement, when they've acquired stability, that knowledge comes to be accordingly? Next, when I went on to examine the c destruction of these things, and what happens in the heavens and the earth, I finally judged myself to have absolutely no gift for this kind of inquiry. I'll tell you a good enough sign of this: there had been things that I previously did know for sure, at least as I myself 5 and others thought; yet I was then so utterly blinded by this inquiry, that I unlearned even those things I formerly supposed I knew, including, amongst many other things, why it is that a human being grows. That, I used earlier to suppose, was obvious to everyone: d it was because of eating and drinking; whenever, from food, flesh came to accrue to flesh, and bone to bone, and similarly on the same principle the appropriate matter came to accrue to each of the other parts, it was then that the little bulk later came to be big; and 5 in this way the small human being comes to be large.⁵⁷ That was what I supposed then: reasonably enough, don't you think?'

'I do,' said Cebes.

'Well, consider these further cases: I used to suppose it was an adequate view, whenever a large man standing beside a small one e appeared to be larger just by a head; similarly with two horses. And, to take cases even clearer than these, it seemed to me that ten was greater than eight because of the accruing of two to the latter, and that two cubits were larger than one cubit, because of their exceeding the latter by half.' 5 'Well, what do you think about them now?' said Cebes.

'I can assure you that I'm far from supposing I know the reason for any of these things, when I don't even accept from myself that when you add one to one, it's either the one to which the addition is made that's come to be two,⁵⁸ or the one that's been added and 97 the one to which it's been added, that have come to be two, because of the addition of one to the other. Because I wonder if, when they were apart from each other, each was one and they weren't two then; whereas when they came close to each other, this then became 5 a reason for their coming to be two—the union in which they were

juxtaposed. Nor again can I any longer be persuaded, if you divide one, that this has now become a reason for its coming to be two, namely division; because if so, we have a reason opposite to the previous one for its coming to be two; then it was their being brought b close to each other and added, one to the other; whereas now it's their being drawn apart, and separated each from the other. Why, I can't even persuade myself any longer that I know why it is that one comes to be; nor, in short, why anything else comes to be, or 5 perishes, or exists, following that method of inquiry. Instead I rashly adopt a different method, a jumble of my own, and in no way incline towards the other.

'One day, however, I heard someone reading from a book he said was by Anaxagoras, according to which it is, in fact, Intelligence that c orders and is the reason for everything. Now this was a reason that pleased me; it seemed to me, somehow, to be a good thing that Intelligence should be the reason for everything. And I thought that, if that's the case, then Intelligence in ordering all things must order 5 them and place each individual thing in the best way possible; so if anyone wanted to find out the reason why each thing comes to be or perishes or exists, this is what he must find out about it: how is it best for that thing to exist, or to act or be acted upon in any way?^s9 d On this theory, then, a man should consider nothing else, whether in regard to himself or anything else, but the best, the highest good; though the same man must also know the worse, as they are objects of the same knowledge. Reckoning thus, I was pleased to 5 think I'd found, in Anaxagoras, an instructor to suit my own intelligence in the reason for the things that are. And I thought he'd inform me, first, whether the earth is flat or round, and when he'd informed me, he'd go on to expound the reason why it must be so, e telling me what was better—better, that is, that it should be like this; and if he said it was in the centre, he'd go on to expound the view that a central position for it was better. If he could make these things clear to me, I was prepared to hanker no more after any other 98 kind of reason. What's more, I was prepared to find out in just the same way about the sun, the moon, and the stars, about their relative velocity and turnings and the other things that happen to them, and how it's better for each of them to act and be acted upon 5

just as they are. Because I never supposed that, having said they were ordered by Intelligence, he'd bring in any reason for them other than its being best for them to be just the way they are; and I b supposed that in assigning the reason for each individual thing, and for things in general, he'd go on to expound what was best for the individual, and what was the common good for all; nor would I have sold these hopes for a large sum, but I made all haste to get 5 hold of the books and read them as quickly as I could, so that I might know as quickly as possible what was best and what was worse.

'Well, my friend, these marvellous hopes of mine were dashed; because, as I went on with my reading, I beheld a man making no use of his Intelligence at all, nor finding in it any reasons for c the ordering of things, but imputing them to such things as air and aether and water and many other absurdities. In fact, he seemed to me to be in exactly the position of someone who said that all Socrates' actions were performed with his intelligence, and who then 5 tried to give the reasons for each of my actions by saying, first, that the reason why I'm now sitting here is that my body consists of bones and sinews, and the bones are hard and separated from each other by joints, whereas the sinews, which can be tightened and d relaxed, surround the bones, together with the flesh and the skin that holds them together; so that when the bones are turned in their sockets, the sinews by stretching and tensing enable me somehow to bend my limbs at this moment, and that's the reason why I'm 5 sitting here bent in this way; or again, by mentioning other reasons of the same kind for my talking with you, imputing it to vocal sounds, air currents, auditory sensations, and countless other such e things, yet neglecting to mention the true reasons: that Athenians judged it better to condemn me, and therefore I in my turn have judged it better to sit here, and thought it more just to stay 5 behind and submit to such penalty as they may ordain. Because, I 99 dare swear,⁶⁰ these sinews and bones would long since have been off in Megara or Boeotia, impelled by their judgement of what was best, had I not thought it more just and honourable not to escape and run away, but to submit to whatever penalty the city might impose. 5 But to call such things "reasons" is quite absurd. It would be quite true to say that without possessing such things as bones and sinews,

and whatever else I possess, I shouldn't be able to do what I judged best; but to call these things the reasons for my actions, rather than my choice of what is best, and that too though I act with intelligence, b would be a thoroughly loose way of talking. Fancy being unable to distinguish two different things: the reason proper, and that without which the reason could never be a reason! Yet it's this latter that most people call a reason, appearing to me to be feeling it over blind- 5 fold,⁶¹ as it were, and applying a wrong name to it. That's why one man makes the earth stay in position by means of the heaven, putting a whirl around it; while another presses down the air as a base, as if with a flat kneading-trough.⁶² Yet the power by which they're now situated in the best way that they could be placed, this c they neither look for nor credit with any supernatural strength; but they think they'll one day discover an Atlas stronger and more immortal than this, who does more to hold everything together. That it's the good or binding, that genuinely does bind and hold 5 things together, they don't believe at all. Now I should most gladly have become anyone's pupil, to learn the truth about a reason of that sort; but since I was deprived of this, proving unable either to find it for myself or to learn it from anyone else, would you like me, Cebes, to give you a display of how I've conducted my second voyage in d quest of the reason?'

'Yes, I'd like that immensely,' he said.

'Well then, it seemed to me next, since I'd wearied of studying the things that are, that I must take care not to incur what happens 5 to people who observe and examine the sun during an eclipse; some of them, you know, ruin their eyes, unless they examine its image in water or something of that sort. I had a similar thought: I was e afraid I might be completely blinded in my soul, by looking at objects with my eyes and trying to lay hold of them with each of my senses. So I thought I should take refuge in theories, and study in 5 them the truth of the things that are. Perhaps my comparison is, in a certain way, inept; as I don't at all admit that one who examines 100 in theories the things that are is any more studying them in images than one who examines them in concrete. But anyhow, this was how I proceeded: hypothesizing on each occasion the theory I judge strongest, I put down as true whatever things seem to me to accord 5

with it, both about a reason and about everything else; and whatever do not, I put down as not true. But I'd like to explain my meaning more clearly; because I don't imagine you understand it as yet.'

'Not entirely, I must say!' said Cebes. b 'Well, this is what I mean: it's nothing new, but what I've spoken of incessantly in our earlier discussion as well as at other times. I'm going to set about displaying to you the kind of reason I've been 5 dealing with; and I'll go back to those much harped-on entities, and start from them, hypothesizing that a beautiful, itself by itself, is something, and so are a good and a large and all the rest. If you grant me that and agree that those things exist, I hope that from them I shall display to you the reason, and find out that soul is immortal.' c 'Well, you may certainly take that for granted,' said Cebes, 'so you couldn't be too quick to conclude.'

'Then look at what comes next to those things, and see if you think as I do. It seems to me that if anything else is beautiful besides 5 the beautiful itself, it is beautiful for no reason at all other than that it participates in that beautiful; and the same goes for all of them. Do you assent to a reason of that kind?'

'I do.'

'Then I no longer understand nor can I recognize those other wise 10 reasons; but if anyone gives me as the reason why a given thing is d beautiful either its having a blooming colour, or its shape, or something else like that, I dismiss those other things—because all those others confuse me—but in a plain, artless, and possibly simple- minded way, I hold this close to myself: nothing else makes it 5 beautiful except that beautiful itself, whether by its presence or communion or whatever the manner and nature of the relation may be;⁶³ as I don't go so far as to affirm that, but only that it is by the beautiful that all beautiful things are beautiful. Because that seems to be the safest answer to give both to myself and to another, and if I e hang on to this, I believe I'll never fall: it's safe to answer both to myself and to anyone else that it is by the bear+iful that beautiful things are beautiful; or don't you agree?'

'I do.'

5 'Similarly it's by largeness that large things are large, and larger things larger, and by smallness that smaller things are smaller?'

'Yes.'

'Then you too wouldn't accept anyone's saying that one man was larger than another by a head, and that the smaller was smaller by that same thing; but you'd protest that you for your part will say 101 only that everything larger than something else is larger by nothing but largeness, and largeness is the reason for its being larger; and that the smaller is smaller by nothing but smallness, and smallness is the reason for its being smaller. You'd be afraid, I imagine, of meeting 5 the following contradiction:⁶⁴ if you say that someone is larger and smaller by a head, then, first, the larger will be larger and the smaller smaller by the same thing; and secondly, the head, by which the larger man is larger, is itself a small thing; and it's surely monstrous b that anyone should be large by something small; or wouldn't you be afraid of that?'

'Yes, I should,' said Cebes laughing.

'Then wouldn't you be afraid to say that ten is greater than eight by two, and that this is the reason for its exceeding, rather than 5 that it's by numerousness, and because of numerousness? Or that two cubits are larger than one cubit by half, rather than by largeness? Because, of course, there'd be the same fear.'

'Certainly,' he said.

'And again, wouldn't you beware of saying that when one is added to one, the addition is the reason for their coming to be two,⁶⁵ or when one is divided, that division is the reason? You'd c shout loudly that you know no other way in which each thing comes to be, except by participating in the peculiar Being⁶⁶ of any given thing in which it does participate; and in these cases you own no other reason for their coming to be two, save participation in 5 twoness: things that are going to be two must participate in that, and whatever is going to be one must participate in oneness. You'd dismiss those divisions and additions and other such subtleties, leaving them as answers to be given by people wiser than yourself; but you, scared of your own shadow, as the saying is, and of your d inexperience, would hang on to that safety of the hypothesis, and answer accordingly. But if anyone hung on to⁶⁷ the hypothesis itself, you would dismiss him, and you wouldn't answer till you should have examined its consequences, to see if, in your view, they

5 are in accord or discord with each other; and when you had to give an account of the hypothesis itself, you would give it in the same way, once again hypothesizing another hypothesis, whichever should e seem best of those above, till you came to something adequate; but you wouldn't jumble things as the contradiction-mongers do, by discussing the starting-point and its consequences at the same time, if, that is, you wanted to discover any of the things that are. For them, perhaps, this isn't a matter of the least thought or concern; 5 their wisdom enables them to mix everything up together, yet still be pleased with themselves; but you, if you really are a philosopher, 102 would, I imagine, do as 1 say.'

'What you say is perfectly true,' said Simmias and Cebes together. Echecrates. Goodness, Phaedo, there was reason to say that! It seems marvellous to me how clearly he put things, even for someone 5 of small intelligence.

Phaedo. Exactly, Echecrates. That was how it seemed to everyone there.

Echecrates. And to us who weren't there but are now hearing it. Tell us, though, what were the things that were said next?

10 Phaedo. As I recall, when these points had been granted him, and b it was agreed that each of the forms was something, and that the other things, partaking in them, took the name of the forms them­selves, he next asked: 'If you say that that is so, then whenever you say that Simmias is larger than Socrates but smaller than Phaedo, you 5 mean then, don't you, that both things are in Simmias, largeness and smallness?'

'I do.'

'Well anyhow, do you agree that Simmias' overtopping of Socrates isn't expressed in those words according to the truth of the c matter? Because it isn't, surely, by nature that Simmias overtops him, by virtue, that is of his being Simmias, but by virtue of the largeness that he happens to have. Nor again does he overtop Socrates because Socrates is Socrates, but because of smallness that Socrates has in relation to his largeness?' 5 'True.'

'Nor again is he overtopped by Phaedo in virtue of Phaedo's being

Phaedo, but because of largeness that Phaedo has in relation to Simmias' smallness?'

'That is so.'

'So that's how Simmias takes the name of being both small and 10 large; it's because he's between the two of them, submitting his smallness to the largeness of the one for it to overtop, and presenting d to the other his largeness which overtops the latter's smallness.'

At this he smiled, and added: 'That sounds as if I'm going to talk like a book.⁶⁸ But anyway, things are surely as I say.'

He agreed.

'My reason for saying this is that I want you to think as I do. 5 Now it seems to me that not only is largeness itself never willing to be large and small at the same time, but also that the largeness in us never admits the small, nor is it willing to be overtopped. Rather, one of two things must happen: either it must retreat and get out of the way, when its opposite, the small, advances towards it; or else, e upon that opposite's advance, it must perish. But what it is not willing to do is to abide and admit smallness, and thus be other than what it was. Thus I, having admitted and abided smallness, am still what I am, this same individual, only small; whereas the large in 5 us,⁶⁹ while being large, can't endure to be small. And similarly, the small that's in us is not willing ever to come to be, or to be, large. Nor will any other of the opposites, while still being what it was, at the same time come to be, and be, its own opposite. If that befalls it, 103 either it goes away or it perishes.'

'I entirely agree,' said Cebes.

On hearing this, one of those present—I don't remember for sure who it was—said: 'But look here, wasn't the very opposite of what's 5 now being said agreed in our earlier discussion: that the larger comes to be from the smaller, and the smaller from the larger, and that coming-to-be is, for opposites, just this—they come to be from their opposites. Whereas now I think it's being said that this could never happen.' 10

Socrates turned his head and listened. 'It's splendid of you to have recalled that,' he said; 'but you don't realize the difference b between what's being said now and what was said then. It was said then that one opposite thing comes to be from another opposite

thing; what we're saying now is that the opposite itself could never 5 come to be opposite to itself, whether it be the opposite in us or the opposite in nature. Then, my friend, we were talking about things that have opposites, calling them by the names they take from them; whereas now we're talking about the opposites themselves, from whose presence in them the things so called derive their names. It's c these latter that we're saying would never be willing to admit coming- to-be from each other.'

With this he looked towards Cebes and said: 'Cebes, you weren't troubled, I suppose, by any of the things our friend here said, were you?'

5 'No, not this time,' said Cebes; 'though I don't deny that many things do trouble me.'

'We've agreed, then, unreservedly on this point: an opposite will never be opposite to itself.'

'Completely.'

10 'Now please consider this further point, and see if you agree with it. Is there something you call hot, and again cold?'

'There is.'

'Do you mean the same as snow and fire?' d 'No, most certainly not.'

'Rather, the hot is something different from fire, and the cold is something different from snow?'

'Yes.'

5 'But this I think you will agree: what is snow will never, on the lines of what we were saying earlier, admit the hot and still be what it was, namely snow, and also hot; but at the advance of the hot, it will either get out of the way or perish.'

'Certainly.'

10 'And again fire, when cold advances, will either get out of the way or perish; but it will never endure to admit the coldness, and still be what it was, namely fire and also cold.' e 'That's true.'

'The situation, then, in some cases of this kind, is as follows: not only is the form itself entitled to its own name for all time; but there's something else too, which is not the same as the form, but 5 which, whenever it exists, always has the character of that form.

Perhaps what I mean will be clearer in this further example: the odd must, surely, always be given this name that we're now using, mustn't it?'

'Certainly.'

'But is it the only thing there is—this is my question—or is there something else, which is not the same as the odd, yet which one must 104 also always call odd, as well as by its own name, because it is by nature such that it can never be separated from the odd? I mean the sort of thing that happens to threeness, and to many other instances. Consider the case of threeness. Don't you think it must 5 always be called both by its own name and by that of the odd, although the odd is not the same as threeness? They aren't the same, yet threeness and fiveness and half the entire number series are by nature, each of them, always odd, although they are not the same as b the odd. And again, two and four and the whole of the other row of numbers, though not the same as the even, are still, each of them, always even. Do you agree or not?'

'Of course.' 5

'Look closely then at what I want to show. It is this: apparently it's not only the opposites we spoke of that don't admit each other. This is also true of all things which, although not opposites to each other, always have the opposites. These things too, it seems, don't admit whatever form may be opposite to the one that's in them, but 10 when it attacks, either they perish or they get out of the way. Thus c we shall say, shan't we, that three will sooner perish, will undergo anything else whatever, sooner than abide coming to be even, while remaining three?'

'Indeed we shall,' said Cebes.

'Moreover, twoness isn't opposite to threeness.' 5

'Indeed not.'

'Then not only do the forms that are opposites not abide each other's attack; but there are, in addition, certain other things that don't abide the opposites' attack.'

'Quite true.' 10

'Then would you like us, if we can, to define what kinds these are?'

'Certainly.'

'Would they, Cebes, be these: things that are compelled by what- d

ever occupies them⁷⁰ to have not only its own form, but always the form of some opposite⁷¹ as well?'

'What do you mean?' 5 'As we were saying just now. You recognize, no doubt, that whatever the form of three occupies must be not only three but also odd.'

'Certainly.'

'Then, we're saying, the form⁷² opposite to the character that has 10 that effect could never go to a thing of that kind.'

'It couldn't.'

'But it was that of odd that had that effect?'

'Yes.'

'And opposite to this is that of the even?' 15 'Yes.'

e 'So that of the even will never come to three.'

'No, it won't.'

'Three, then, has no part in the even.'

'No part.' 5 'So threeness is uneven.'

'Yes.'

'So what I was saying we were to define* the kind of things which, while not opposite to a given thing, nevertheless don't admit it, the opposite in question⁷³—as we've just seen that threeness, while not opposite to the even, nevertheless doesn't admit it, since it always 10 brings up its opposite, just as twoness brings up the opposite of the odd, and the fire brings up the opposite of the cold, and so on in a 105 great many other cases—well, see whether you would define them thus: it is not only the opposite that doesn't admit its opposite; there is also that which brings up an opposite into whatever it enters itself; and that thing, the very thing that brings it up, never admits 5 the quality opposed to the one that's brought up.⁷* Recall it once more: there's no harm in hearing it several times. Five won't admit the form of the even, nor will ten, its double, admit that of the odd. This, of course, is itself also the opposite of something else; never- b theless, it won't admit the form of the odd. Nor again will one-and-a half, and the rest of that series, the halves, admit the form of the whole; and the same applies to a third, and all that series. Do you

follow and agree that that is so?'

'I agree most emphatically, and I do follow.'

'Then please repeat it from the start; and don't answer in the exact terms of my question, but in imitation of my example. I say this, because from what's now being said I see a different kind of safeness beyond the answer I gave initially, the old safe one. Thus, if you were to ask me what it is, by whose presence in a body, that body will be hot,⁷⁵1 shan't give you the old safe, ignorant answer, that it's hotness, but a subtler answer now available, that it's fire. And again, if you ask what it is, by whose presence in a body, that body will ail, I shan't say that it's illness, but fever. And again, if asked what it is, by whose presence in a number, that number will be odd, I shan't say oddness, but oneness; and so on. See whether by now you have an adequate understanding of what I want.'

'Yes, quite adequate.'

'Answer then, and tell me what it is, by whose presence in a body, that body will be living.'

'Soul.'

'And is this always so?'

'Of course.'

'Then soul, whatever it occupies, always comes to that thing bringing life?'

'It comes indeed.'

'And is there an opposite to life, or is there none?'

'There is.'

'What is it?'

'Death.'

'Now soul will absolutely never admit the opposite of what it brings up, as has been agreed earlier?'

'Most emphatically,' said Cebes.

'Well now, what name did we give just now to what doesn't admit the form of the even?'

'Un-even.'

'And to that which doesn't admit the just, and to whatever doesn't admit the musical?'

. 'Un-musical, and un-just.'

'Well then, what do we call whatever doesn't admit death?'

'Im-mortal.'

'But soul doesn't admit death?' 5 'No.'

'Then soul is immortal.'

'It's immortal.'

'Very well. May we say that this much has been proved? Or how does it seem to you?'

'Yes, and very adequately proved, Socrates.' 10 'Now what about this, Cebes? If it were necessary for the un- 106 even to be imperishable, three would be imperishable, wouldn't it?'

'Of course.'

'Or again, if the un-hot were necessarily imperishable likewise, then whenever anyone brought hot against snow, the snow would 5 get out of the way, remaining intact and unmelted? Because it couldn't perish, nor again could it abide and admit the hotness.'

'True.'

'And in the same way, I imagine, if the un-coolable were imperish­able, then whenever something cold attacked the fire, it could never 10 be put out nor could it perish, but it would depart and go away intact.'

'It would have to.'

b 'Then aren't we compelled to say the same thing about the im-mortal? If the immortal is also imperishable, it's impossible for soul, whenever death attacks it, to perish. Because it follows from what's been said before that it won't admit death, nor will it be 5 dead, just as we said that three will not be even, any more than the odd will be; and again that fire will not be cold, any more than the hotness in the fire will be. "But", someone might say, "what's to prevent the odd, instead of coming to be even, as we granted it c didn't, when the even attacks, from perishing, and there coming to be even in its place?" Against one who said that, we could not contend that it doesn't perish; because the uneven is not imperish­able. If that had been granted us, we could easily have contended 5 that when the even attacks, the odd and three depart and go away. And we could have contended similarly about fire and hot and the rest, couldn't we?'

'Certainly we could.'

'So now, about the immortal likewise: if it's granted us that it must also be imperishable, then soul, besides being immortal, would 10 also be imperishable; but if not, another argument would be needed.' d

'But there's no need of one, on that score at least. Because it could hardly be that anything else wouldn't admit destruction if the immortal, being everlasting, is going to admit destruction.'

'Well God anyway,' said Socrates, 'and the form of life itself, and 5 anything else immortal there may be, never perish, as would, I think, be agreed by everyone.'

'Why yes, to be sure; by all men and still more, I imagine, by gods.'

'Then, given that the immortal is also indestructible,⁷⁶ wouldn't e soul, if it proves to be immortal, be imperishable as well?'

'It absolutely must be imperishable.'

'Then when death attacks a man, his mortal part, it seems, dies; 5 whereas the immortal part gets out of the way of death, departs, and goes away intact and undestroyed.'

'It appears so.'

'Beyond all doubt then, Cebes, soul is immortal and imperishable, and our souls really will exist in Hades.' 107

'Well, Socrates, for my part I've no further objection, nor can I doubt the arguments at any point. But if Simmias here or anyone else has anything to say, he'd better not keep silent; as I know of no future occasion to which anyone wanting to speak or hear about 5 such things could put it off.'

'Well no,' said Simmias; 'nor have I any further ground for doubt myself, as far as the arguments go; though in view of the size of the subject under discussion, and having a low regard for human weakness, b I'm bound to retain some doubt in my mind about what's been said.'

'Not only that, Simmias,' said Socrates; 'what you say is right, so the initial hypotheses, even if they're acceptable to you people, 5 should still be examined more clearly: if you analyse them ade­quately, you will, I believe, follow the argument to the furthest point to which man can follow it up; and if you get that clear,⁷⁷ you'll seek nothing further.'

'What you say is true.' 10

'But this much it's fair to keep in mind, friends: if a soul is c

immortal, then it needs care, not only for the sake of this time in which what we call "life" lasts, but for the whole of time; and if 5 anyone is going to neglect it, now the risk would seem fearful. Because if death were a separation from everything, it would be a godsend for the wicked, when they died, to be separated at once from the body and from their own wickedness along with the soul; but since, d in fact, it is evidently immortal, there would be no other refuge from ills or salvation for it, except to become as good and wise as possible. For the soul enters Hades taking nothing else but its education and nurture, which are, indeed, said to do the greatest 5 benefit or harm to the one who has died, at the very outset of his journey yonder.

'Now it is said that when each man has died, the spirit allotted to each while he was living proceeds to bring him to a certain place, where those gathered must submit to judgement, and then e journey to Hades with the guide appointed to conduct those in this world to the next; and when they have experienced there the things they must, and stayed there for the time required, another guide conveys them back here during many long cycles of time. So the journey is not as Aeschylus' Telephus describes it: he says it is a 108 simple path that leads to Hades, but to me it seems to be neither simple nor single. For then there would be no need of guides; since no one, surely, could lose the way anywhere, if there were only a single road. But in fact it probably has many forkings and branchings; 5 I speak from the evidence of the rites⁷⁸ and observances followed here. Now the wise and well-ordered soul follows along, and is not unfamiliar with what befalls it; but the soul in a state of desire for the body, as I said earlier, flutters around it for a long time, and around b the region of the seen,⁷⁹ and after much resistance and many sufferings it goes along, brought by force and against its will by the appointed spirit. And on arriving where the others have gone, if the soul is unpurifled and has commited any such act as engaging in 5 wrongful killings, or performing such other deeds as may be akin to those and the work of kindred souls, everyone shuns and turns aside from it, and is unwilling to become its travelling companion or c guide; but it wanders by itself in a state of utter confusion, till certain periods of time have elapsed, and when these have passed,

it is taken perforce into the dwelling meet for it; but the soul that has passed through life with purity and moderation finds gods for travelling companions and guides, and each inhabits the region that 5 befits it.

'Now there are many wondrous regions in the earth, and the earth itself is of neither the nature nor the size supposed by those who usually describe it, as someone has convinced me.'

Here Simmias said: 'What do you mean by that, Socrates? I've d heard many things about the earth too, but not these that convince you;⁸⁰ so I'd be glad to hear them.'

'Well, Simmias, I don't think the skill of Glaucus is needed to relate what they are; although to prove them true does seem to me 5 too hard for the skill of Glaucus—I probably couldn't do it myself, and besides, even if I knew how to, I think the life left me, Simmias, doesn't suffice for the length of the argument. Still, nothing prevents me from telling of what I've been convinced the earth is like in e shape, and of its regions.'

'Well, even that is enough,' said Simmias.

'First then, I've been convinced that if it is round and in the centre of the heaven, it needs neither air nor any other such force to 5 prevent its falling, but the uniformity of the heaven in every direction 109 with itself is enough to support it, together with the equilibrium of the earth itself; because a thing in equilibrium placed in the middle of something uniform will be unable to incline either more or less in 5 any direction, but being in a uniform state it will remain without incline. So that's the first thing of which I've been convinced.'

'And rightly so,' said Simmias.

'And next, that it is of vast size, and that we who dwell between the Phasis River and the Pillars of Heracles inhabit only a small part b of it, living around the sea like ants or frogs around a marsh, and that there are many others living elsewhere in many such places. For there are many hollows all over the earth, varying in their 5 shapes and sizes, into which water and mist and air have flowed together; and the earth itself is set in the heaven, a pure thing in pure surroundings, in which the stars are situated, and which most of those who usually describe such things name "aether"; it's from this c that these elements are the dregs, and continually flow together into

the hollows of the earth. Now we ourselves are unaware that we live in its hollows, and think we live above the earth-just as if 5 someone living at the bottom of the ocean were to think he lived above the sea, and seeing the sun and the stars through the water, were to imagine that the sea was heaven, and yet through slowness d and weakness had never reached the surface of the sea, nor emerged, stuck his head up out of the sea into this region here, and seen how much purer and fairer it really is than their world, nor had heard 5 this from anyone else who had seen it. Now this is just what has happened to us: living in some hollow of the earth, we think we live above it, and we call the air "heaven", as if this were heaven and the stars moved through it; whereas the truth is just the same-because e of our weakness and slowness, we are unable to pass through to the summit of the air; for were anyone to go to its surface, or gain wings and fly aloft, he would stick his head up and see—just as here the 5 fishes of the sea stick their heads up and see the things here, so he would see the things up there; and if his nature were able to bear the vision, he would realize that this is the true heaven, the genuine 110 light, and the true earth. For this earth of ours, and its stones and all the region here, are corrupted and eaten away, as are things in the sea by the brine; nor does anything worth mentioning grow in the 5 sea, and practically nothing is perfect, but there are eroded rocks and sand and unimaginable mud and mire, wherever there is earth as well, and things are in no way worthy to be compared with the beauties in our world. But those objects in their turn would be seen to surpass the things in our world by a far greater measure still; b indeed, if it is proper to tell a tale, it's worth hearing, Simmias, what the things upon the earth and beneath the heaven are actually like.'

'Why yes, Socrates,' said Simmias, 'we'd be glad to hear this tale.' 5 'Well then, my friend, first of all the true earth, if one views it from above, is said to look like those twelve-piece leather balls, variegated, a patchwork of colours, of which our colours here are, c as it were, samples that painters use. There the whole earth is of such colours, indeed of colours far brighter still and purer than these: one portion is purple, marvellous for its beauty, another is golden, and all that is white is whiter than chalk or snow; and the earth is 5 composed of the other colours likewise, indeed of colours more

numerous and beautiful than any we have seen. Even its very hollows, full as they are of water and air, give an appearance of colour, gleaming among the variety of the other colours, so that its d general appearance is of one continuous multi-coloured surface. This being its nature, things that grow on it, trees and flowers and fruit, grow in proportion; and again, the mountains contain stones likewise, 5 whose smoothness, transparency, and beauty of colour are in the same proportion; it is from these that the little stones we value, sardian stones, jaspers, emeralds, and all such, are pieces; but there, e every single one is like that, or even more beautiful still. This is because the stones there are pure, and not corroded or corrupted, like those here, by mildew and brine due to the elements that have flowed together, bringing ugliness and disease to stones and earth, 5 and to plants and animals as well. But the true earth is adorned with all these things, and with gold and silver also, and with the other 111 things of that kind as well. For they are plainly visible, being many in number, large, and everywhere upon the earth; happy, therefore, are they who behold the sight of it. Among many other living things upon it there are men, some dwelling inland, some living by 5 the air, as we live by the sea, and some on islands surrounded by the air and lying close to the mainland; and in a word, what the water and the sea are to us for our needs, the air is to them; and what air is for us, aether is for them. Their climate is such that they are free b from sickness and live a far longer time than people here, and they surpass us in sight, hearing, wisdom, and all such faculties, by the extent to which air surpasses water for its purity, and aether sur- 5 passes air. Moreover, they have groves and temples of gods, in which gods are truly dwellers, and utterances and prophecies, and direct awareness of the gods; and communion of that kind they experience face to face. The sun and moon and stars are seen by them as they c really are, and their happiness in all else accords with this.

'Such is the nature of the earth as a whole and its surroundings; but in it there are many regions within the hollows it has all around it,⁸¹ 5 some deeper and some more extended than the one in which we dwell, some deeper but with a narrower opening than our own region, and others that are shallower in depth but broader than this one. All d these are interconnected underground in every direction, by passages

both narrower and wider, and they have channels through which 5 abundant water flows from one into another, as into mixing bowls, and continuous underground rivers of unimaginable size, with waters hot and cold, and abundant fire and great rivers of fire, and many of liquid mud, some purer and some more miry, like the rivers of mud e in Sicily that flow ahead of the lava-stream, and the lava-stream itself; with these each of the regions is filled, as the circling stream happens to reach each one on each occasion. All of this is kept moving back and forth by a kind of pulsation going on within the 5 earth; and the nature of this pulsation is something like this: one of the openings in the earth happens to be especially large, and per- 112 forated right through the earth; it is this that Homer spoke of as: A great way off, where lies the deepest pit beneath earth; and it is this that he, and many other poets have elsewhere called 5 Tartarus. Now into this opening all the rivers flow together, and from it they flow out again; and each acquires its character from the nature b of the earth through which it flows. The reason why all the streams flow out there, and flow in, is that this liquid has neither bottom nor resting place. So it pulsates and surges back and forth, and the air and the breath enveloping it do the same; because they follow 5 it, when it rushes towards those areas of the earth and again when it returns to these; and just as in breathing the current of breath is continuously exhaled and inhaled, so there the breath pulsating together with the liquid causes terrible and unimaginable winds, as it c passes in and out. Now when the water recedes into the so-called "downward" region, it flows along the courses of those streams through the earth⁸² and fills them, as in the process of irrigation; and when it leaves there again and rushes back here, then it fills 5 these ones here once more; these, when filled, flow through the channels and through the earth, and reaching the regions into which a way has been made for each, they make seas and lakes and rivers d and springs; and then dipping again beneath the earth, some circling longer and more numerous regions, and others fewer and shorter ones, they discharge once more into Tartarus, some a long way and others a little below where the irrigation began; but all flow in 5 below the point of outflow, some across from where they poured out, and some in the same part; and there are some that go right

round in a circle, coiling once or even many times around the earth like serpents, and then, after descending as far as possible, discharge once more. It is possible to descend in either direction as far as the e middle but no further; because the part on either side slopes uphill for both sets of streams.

'Now there are many large streams of every kind; but among their number there happen to be four in particular, the largest of which, 5 flowing outermost and round in a circle, is the one called Oceanus; across from this and flowing in the opposite direction is Acheron, which flows through other desert regions, and in particular, flowing 113 underground, reaches the Acherusian Lake, where the souls of most of those who have died arrive, and where, after they have stayed for certain appointed periods, some longer, some shorter, they are sent forth again into the generation of living things. The third river issues 5 between these two, and near the point of issue it pours into a huge region all ablaze with fire, and forms a lake larger than our own sea, boiling with water and mud; from there it proceeds in a circle, turbid and muddy, and coiling about within the earth it reaches the b borders of the Acherusian Lake, amongst other places, but does not mingle with its water; then, after repeated coiling underground, it discharges lower down in Tartarus; this is the river they name Pyriphlegethon, and it is from this that the lava-streams blast frag- 5 ments up at various points upon the earth. Across from this again issues the fourth river, first into a region terrible and wild, it is said, coloured bluish-grey all over, which they name the Stygian region, c and the river as it discharges forms a lake,⁸³ the Styx; when it has poured in there, and gained terrible powers in the water, it dips beneath the earth, coils round and proceeds in the opposite direction to Pyriphlegethon, which it encounters in the Acherusian lake from 5 the opposite side; nor does the water of this river mingle with any other, but it too goes round in a circle and discharges into Tartarus opposite to Pyriphlegethon; and its name, according to the poets, is Cocytus.

'Such, then, is their nature. Now when those who have died d arrive at the region to which the spirit conveys each one, they first submit to judgement, both those who have lived honourable and holy lives and those who have not. Those who are found to have

5 lived indifferently journey to Acheron, embark upon certain vessels provided for them, and on these they reach the lake; there they dwell, undergoing purgation by paying the penalty for their wrong­doings, and are absolved, if any has committed any wrong, and they e secure reward for their good deeds, each according to his desert; but all who are found to be incurable because of the magnitude of their offences, through having committed many grave acts- of sacrilege, or many wrongful and illegal acts of killing, or any other 5 deeds that may be of that sort, are hurled by the appropriate destiny into Tartarus, whence they nevermore emerge. Those, again, who are found guilty of curable yet grave offences, such as an act 114 of violence in anger against a father or a mother, and have lived the rest of their lives in penitence, or who have committed homicide in some other such fashion, must fall into Tartarus; and when they have fallen and stayed there for a year, the surge casts them forth, 5 the homicides by way of Cocytus, and those who have assaulted father or mother by way of Pyriphlegethon; then, as they are carried along and draw level with the Acherusian lake, they cry out and call, some to those they killed, others to those they injured; calling upon b them, they beg and beseech them to allow them to come forth into the lake and to receive them; and if they persuade them, they come forth and cease from their woes; but if not, they are carried back into Tartarus, and from there again into the rivers, and they do not 5 cease from these sufferings till they persuade those they have wronged; for this is the penalty imposed upon them by their judges. But as for those who are found to have lived exceptionally holy lives, it is they who are freed and delivered from these regions within the earth, as from prisons, and who attain to the pure c dwelling above, and make their dwelling above ground. And among their number, those who have been adequately purified by philo­sophy live bodiless for the whole of time to come, and attain to dwelling places fairer even than these, which it is not easy to 5 reveal, nor is the time sufficient at present. But it is for the sake of just the things we have related, Simmias, that one must do every­thing possible to have part in goodness and wisdom during life; for fair is the prize and great the hope, d 'Now to insist that these things are just as I've related them

would not be fitting for a man of intelligence; but that either this or something like it is true about our souls and their dwellings, given that the soul evidently is immortal, this, I think, is fitting and 5 worth risking, for one who believes that it is so—for a noble risk it is—so one should repeat such things to oneself like a spell; which is just why I've so prolonged the tale. For these reasons, then, any man should have confidence for his own soul, who during his life e has rejected the pleasures of the body and its adornments as alien, thinking they do more harm than good, but has devoted himself to the pleasures of learning, and has decked his soul with no alien 5 adornment, but with its own, with temperance and justice, bravery, 115 liberality, and truth, thus awaiting the journey he will make to Hades, whenever destiny shall summon him.⁸⁴ Now as for you, Simmias and Cebes and the rest, you will make your several journeys at some.,future time, but for myself, "e'en now", as a tragic hero might say, "destiny doth summon me"; and it's just about time I 5 made for the bath: it really seems better to take a bath before drinking the poison, and not to give the women the trouble of washing a dead body.'

When he'd spoken, Crito said: 'Very well, Socrates: what instruc- b tions have you for these others or for me, about your children or about anything else? What could we do, that would be of most service to you?'

'What I'm always telling you, Crito,' said he, 'and nothing very 5 new: if you take care for yourselves, your actions will be of service to me and mine, and to yourselves too, whatever they may be, even if you make no promises now; but if you take no care for yourselves, and are unwilling to pursue your lives along the tracks, as it were, marked by our present and earlier discussions, then even if you 10 make many firm promises at this time, you'll do no good at all.' c

'Then we'll strive to do as you say,' he said; 'but in what fashion are we to bury you?'

'However you wish,' said he; 'provided you catch me, that is, and I don't get away from you.' And with this he laughed quietly, 5 looked towards us and said: 'Friends, I can't persuade Crito that I am Socrates here, the one who is now conversing and arranging each

of the things being discussed; but he imagines I'm that dead body d he'll see in a little while, so he goes and asks how he's to bury me! But as for the great case I've been arguing all this time, that when I drink the poison, I shall no longer remain with you, but shall go off and depart for some happy state of the blessed, this, I think, I'm 5 putting to him in vain, while comforting you and myself alike. So please stand surety for me with Crito, the opposite surety to that which he stood for me with the judges: his guarantee was that I would stay behind, whereas you must guarantee that, when I die, I shall not stay behind, but shall go off and depart; then Crito will e bear it more easily, and when he sees the burning or interment of my body, he won't be distressed for me, as if I were suffering dreadful things, and won't say at the funeral that it is Socrates they are laying out or bearing to the grave or interring. Because you can be sure, my 5 dear Crito, that misuse of words is not only troublesome in itself, but actually has a bad effect on the soul. Rather, you should have confidence, and say you are burying my body; and bury it however 116 you please, and think most proper.'

After saying this, he rose and went into a room to take a bath, and Crito followed him but told us to wait. So we waited, talking among ourselves about what had been said and reviewing it, and then 5 again dwelling on how great a misfortune had befallen us, literally thinking of it as if we were deprived of a father and would lead the rest of our life as orphans. After he'd bathed and his children had b been brought to him—he had two little sons and one big one—and those women of his household had come, he talked with them in Crito's presence, and gave certain directions as to his wishes; he then 5 told the women and children to leave, and himself returned to us.

By now it was close to sunset, as he'd spent a long time inside. So he came and sat down, fresh from his bath, and there wasn't much talk after that. Then the prison official came in, stepped up to c him and said: 'Socrates, I shan't reproach you as I reproach others for being angry with me and cursing, whenever by order of the rulers I direct them to drink the poison. In your time here I've 5 known you for the most generous and gentlest and best of men who have ever come to this place; and now especially, I feel sure it isn't with me that you're angry, but with others, because you know who

are responsible. Well now, you know the message I've come to bring: good-bye, then, and try to bear the inevitable as easily as you d can.' And with this he turned away in tears, and went off.

Socrates looked up at him and said: 'Good-bye to you too, and we'll do as you say.' And to us he added: 'What a civil man he is! 5 Throughout my time here he's been to see me, and sometimes talked with me, and been the best of fellows; and now how generous of him to weep for me! But come on, Crito, let's obey him: let someone bring in the poison, if it has been prepared; if not, let the man prepare it.'

Crito said: 'But Socrates, I think the sun is still on the mountains e and hasn't yet gone down. And besides, I know of others who've taken the draught long after the order had been given them, and after dining well and drinking plenty, and even in some cases enjoying themselves with those they fancied. Be in no hurry, then: there's 5 still time left.'

Socrates said: 'It's reasonable for those you speak of to do those things—because they think they gain by doing them; for myself, it's reasonable not to do them; because I think I'll gain nothing by taking the draught a little later: I'll only earn my own ridicule by 117 clinging to life, and being sparing when there's nothing more left. Go on now; do as I ask, and nothing else.'

Hearing this, Crito nodded to the boy who was standing nearby. The boy went out, and after spending a long time away he returned, 5 bringing the man who was going to administer the poison, and was carrying it ready-pounded in a cup. When he saw the man, Socrates said: 'Well, my friend, you're an expert in these things: what must one do?'

'Simply drink it,' he said, 'and walk about till a heaviness comes over your legs; then lie down, and it will act of itself.' And with this b he held out the cup to Socrates.

He took it perfectly calmly, Echecrates, without a tremor, or any change of colour or countenance; but looking up at the man, and fixing him with his customary stare, he said: 'What do you say to 5 pouring someone a libation from this drink? Is it allowed or not?'

'We only prepare as much as we judge the proper dose, Socrates,' he said.

c 'I understand,' he said; 'but at least one may pray to the gods, and so one should, that the removal from this world to the next will be a happy one; that is my own prayer: so may it be.' With these words he pressed the cup to his lips, and drank it off with good humour and without the least distaste. 5 Till then most of us had been fairly well able to restrain our tears; but when we saw he was drinking, that he'd actually drunk it, we could do so no longer. In my own case, the tears came pouring out in spite of myself, so that I covered my face and wept for myself— not for him, no, but for my own misfortune in being deprived of d such a man for a companion. Even before me, Crito had moved away, when he was unable to restrain his tears. And Apollodorus, who even earlier had been continuously in tears, now burst forth 5 into such a storm of weeping and grieving, that he made everyone present break down except Socrates himself.

But Socrates said: 'What a way to behave, my strange friends! Why, it was mainly for this reason that I sent the women away, so e that they shouldn't make this sort of trouble; in fact, I've heard one should die in silence. Come now, calm yourselves and have strength.'

When we heard this, we were ashamed and checked our tears. He walked about, and when he said that his legs felt heavy he lay down 5 on his back—as the man told him—and then the man, this one who'd given him the poison, felt him, and after an interval examined his feet and legs; he then pinched his foot hard and asked if he could feel it, 118 and Socrates said not. After that he felt his shins once more; and moving upwards in this way, he showed us that he was becoming cold and numb. He⁸⁵ went on feeling him, and said that when the coldness reached his heart, he would be gone. 5 By this time the coldness was somewhere in the region of his abdomen, when he uncovered his face—it had been covered over— and spoke; and this was in fact his last utterance: 'Crito,' he said, 'we owe a cock to Asclepius: please pay the debt, and don't neglect it.'

10 'It shall be done,' said Crito; 'have you anything else to say?'

To this question he made no answer, but after a short interval he stirred, and when the man uncovered him his eyes were fixed; when he saw this, Crito closed his mouth and his eyes.

And that, Echecrates, was the end of our companion, a man 15 who, among those of his time we knew, was-so we should say—the best, the wisest too, and the most just.

NOTES

The events dramatized in the Phaedo took place in 399 B.C., when Plato was in his twenties. The dialogue portrays the execution of Socrates, which followed his conviction by an Athenian court on charges of 'impiety' and 'corrupting the young'. It thus forms a sequel to the episodes from his trial and imprisonment presented in the Apology and Crito.

Plato's version of his master's death is a philosophical memoir rather than a biographical record. The death scene is made the occasion of a philosophical discussion which can hardly be authentic. But the discussion is perfectly matched to the events in which it is framed. Thought and action are interfused throughout in the manner typical of Plato's maturity as a philosopher-dramatist. The date of composition is uncertain, but the work is usually assigned to Plato's 'middle period'. It was probably written more than a decade after the events it purports to depict.

In these notes the name 'Socrates' will generally refer to the dramatic personage, not to the historical figure, and without pre­judice to the question of how far the views under discussion were Plato's own. It is not unreasonable to attribute to him the general position and main theses of 'Socrates' in this work. But he need not be taken to endorse every argument he puts into Socrates' mouth. The work is not an exposition of his doctrines, but a meditation upon the issues it raises, and a stimulus to the reader to explore them for himself.

1. PROLOGUE (57al—59c7)

The opening conversation between Phaedo and Echecrates takes place at Phlius, a small town in the Peloponnese. It was a centre of Pythagorean philosophy, of which Echecrates was an adherent, and which colours the thought of much of the dialogue. Of Phaedo of Elis, who tells the story, little is known. Possibly it was he who gave the original account of Socrates' death to Plato himself. There will be two interludes later (88c8-89a8, 102a3-9), which revert briefly to the present scene, reminding us that the main dialogue is narrated.

57al-b3. 'How did he meet his end?': the primary meaning of the verb in this question (a6) is 'to end'. Hence it commonly means 'end one's life'. Here, as at 58c9 and 58e4, the imperfect tense suggests that the question concerns Socrates' whole conduct of his death, and not merely the terminal event. Cf. 58c6—'the circum­stances of the death itself. The dialogue will examine the concept of death in the context of this particular death.

Another common word for 'die' appears at 57b2—'he died by drinking poison'. It is sometimes used as a passive form of the verb for 'kill', and thus could, here and at 58a5, mean 'he was put to death'. Both verbs recur often in the dialogue, but they have not been distinguished elsewhere in the translation, and have generally been rendered 'die'. See also note 4 and on 71d5—e3.

58a6—c5. In explaining the deferment of Socrates' execution as due to the festival of Apollo, Phaedo touches on two important religious themes: (1) human service to the gods, and (2) purification.

Socrates himself will be represented throughout as the true servant of Apollo (60d2, 61b2-3, 85b4-5). He thus embodies the principle enunciated later that to be ruled is mortal, to rule divine (80a, cf.94e4—5).

The concept of purification pervades the whole dialogue, and strengthens the Pythagorean associations suggested by its character­ization and setting. See, e.g., 65e6, 66d—e, 67a—c, 69c, 80d—e, 82c— d, 114cl—3. It is ironical that Athens's concern for her 'purity' should have delayed Socrates' death. His execution was to afford the release of soul from body in which his own 'purification' would be perfected.

'Chance' and its cognate verb occur together at 58a6 and perhaps mean more than mere coincidence. They may contain a hint of supernatural intervention. Cf.58e5— 6 and see Loriaux, 17, 38—9.

59al—b4. Phaedo's account of the 'strange mixture of pleasure and pain' (a5—7) he felt at Socrates' death has sometimes been felt to conflict with the latter's statement at 60b6 that pleasure and pain will not visit a man together. There is, in fact, no reason why a speaker in the prologue should not be contradicted by a different speaker in the narrated dialogue. However, Socrates' words need not be taken to conflict with what is said here, since he may be denying not that pleasure and pain can coexist, but only that they can 'arise' at the same time. See on 60b 1— c7.

59b5—c4. Plato is mentioned by name only three times in the dialogues: twice in the Apology> (34al, 38b6) his presence at Socrates' trial is noted; here it is recorded that he was absent at Socrates' death. Thus, although Phaedo's account of the death scene is marked as first hand (57al—4), Plato indicates that he did not witness it himself. For the other persons named here, see Hackforth, 30-1.

2. SOCRATES IN PRISON (59c8—69e5)

Socrates' friends visit and converse with him in prison. This section forms a prelude to the main discussion.

2.1 Opening Conversation (59c8—63e7)

The conversation soon leads to a discussion of suicide. Here an apparent contradiction develops: the true philosopher should wel­come death, yet he may not kill himself. The paradox is not resolved by supposing that men are possessions of the gods.

59e6-60al. 'The Eleven are releasing Socrates' (e6): 'the Eleven' were the Athenian prison authorities responsible for state executions. Cf.85b9 and 116b8. The release of Socrates from his chains (al) prefigures the release of his soul from its bodily prison. The notion of death as a 'release' occurs often. See note 1, and cf.65al, 67a6, 67dl—10,82el—83a3,83dl-2, 84a2-5.

60bl-c7. 'Its supposed opposite, "painful"' (b4—5): this trans­lation assumes that the phrase 'the painful' indicates reference to the word 'painful', making it parallel to 'this state that men call "pleasant"' (60b4). Socrates may be hinting that so-called 'pleasant' things are miscalled, though he does not speak analogously of 'so- called pains'. His reflections on pleasure and pain are sometimes held to contain the germ of the theory, developed at length in the Republic (583b-585a), Timaeus (64c, ff.), and Philebus (31d-32b), that many so-called 'pleasures' of the body are no more than relief from pain, and are therefore in some sense 'false'. Cf. the 'so-called pleasures' of 64d3, and the related, although logically distinct, doctrine of 83c5—e3.

Several questions arise: (1) Are pleasure and pain 'opposites'? (2) In what sense can they not visit at the same time? (3) Why are they nevertheless held to be inseparably connected?

(1) The opposition between pleasure and pain is expressed only in non-committal terms: the painful is referred to as 'the supposed opposite' of pleasant. On this point the Phaedo's position falls between those of the Gorgias and the Republic. In the Gorgias (495e-497d) it is not said that pleasure and pain are opposites, and it may even be implied (495e6—7) that they are not. In the Republic (583c3—4) it is firmly asserted that they are. The present remarks are sometimes held to prepare for the treatment of opposites that lies ahead (70d—72e, 102b-106e). However, pleasure and pain are noticeably absent from the opposites mentioned later, and the law that opposites come to be from opposites (70e—71a) cannot be plausibly applied to them—see (3) below.

Does Socrates mean merely (a) that pleasure and pain cannot 'arise' at the same time, or (b) that they cannot coexist in a single subject at all? (b) would indeed follow from the doctrine that pleasure and pain are opposites, combined with the principle that no pair of opposites can belong to a given subject in the same respect at the same time (.Republic 436b). However, this principle is not expressly stated in the Phaedo. Moreover, the view that pleasure and pain cannot coexist in a single subject would run counter to the case of Phaedo's mingled pleasure and pain in face of Socrates' death (59a). (a), on the other hand, would be well supported by the case of Socrates' leg. The pain caused by the fetter would have to have preceded the pleasure felt upon its removal. More generally, the pleasure of relief must depend upon antecedent pain. Even though pleasure and pain may coexist, it remains true that they cannot 'arise' at the same time.

The alleged inseparability of pleasure from pain seems a curious moral for Socrates to draw from the state of his leg. Neither possible application of it fits the example.

To say that anyone who pursues and catches pain is virtually bound to catch pleasure would be neither relevant nor true. Pain is not a normal object of pursuit at all, and Socrates did not, of course, 'pursue' the pain in his leg. Nor is pain bound to be followed by pleasure: the pleasure Socrates now feels is not a necessary sequel to the pain, but contingent upon the removal of the fetter. It is true that the pleasure of relief depends upon antecedent pain; and from such texts as Republic 583cl0—d 11 it is tempting to interpret Socrates similarly here. However, on a strict reading he seems committed to the quite different, and less defensible, proposition that pain must generally be succeeded by pleasure.

The more plausible application would be that anyone who pursues and catches pleasure is virtually bound to catch pain. This avoids some of the difficulties of (a), but is also objectionable. It does not fit the present example, since Socrates is not pursuing pleasure. Moreover, the suggestion would have to be, once again, not merely that the pleasure in his leg depended upon a previous pain, but that such pleasure must nearly always be followed by pain. Yet there is no likelihood that the pleasure he now feels in his leg will be followed by pain. Pleasure and pain are not experienced in continuous alter­nation. This will be recognized in the Republic, where a distinction is drawn between pleasure and pain, and a state of 'rest', which is neither pleasant nor painful. The mere absence of one opposite, it is there argued, is not to be mistaken for the presence of the other (584a4—6).

See, further, E. R. Dodds, ed. Gorgias 495e2-497d8.

60c8-61cl. The translation 'putting into verse' has been adopted at 60dl rather than 'setting to music' (Burnet). Verses are nowhere expressly mentioned, but Socrates' words at 61b3-4 suggest that he made poetry out of Aesop's tales rather than 'music' in the modern sense. This would be consistent with the command of his dream to 'make art and practise it'. 'Art' has been used for the Greek word from which 'music' is derived, which means 'activity presided over by the Muses'. See Hackforth, 37.

Socrates' denial that he is a 'teller of tales' (61b5) is rather oddly belied by 60c 1—5. At 61e2 he will propose to 'inquire and speculate' regarding the afterlife. The word translated 'speculate' means, literally, 'tell tales'. The phrase expresses the spirit of the whole dialogue, argument and tale-telling being interwoven throughout. Cf.70b6 and see note 15.

The translation 'dream' has been used at 60e2-6 lb 1, despite the oddity in English of saying that a dream, as distinct from a dream- figure, speaks, gives orders, and is obeyed. The Greeks did not distinguish sharply between the content of a dream and the dream itself. When, as often, the dream-figure is a human being or a god, the dream itself can be credited with the words or actions that a real agent might utter or perform.

It may seem curious at 60e4—6 that 'the same dream' should have different visual manifestations. Whatever the necessary con­ditions of 'sameness' in dreams may be, it seems natural to count similarity of visual content among them. But perhaps Socrates means that the dream figure was Apollo himself, and that the god has often appeared to him in different forms. The translation 'now in one guise, now in another' assumes this interpretation.

For the Greek view of dream experience see E. R. Dodds, G.I., Ch.4. For Plato's treatment of dreams see D. Gallop, E.A.G.P. 187-201.

61d3—e9. Philolaus was a Pythagorean who survived the expul­sion of the sect from southern Italy in the mid-fifth century B.C. and settled in Thebes. If his teaching on suicide was along the lines that Socrates suggests at 62b—c, it can hardly be reconciled with the account of the soul that his disciple, Simmias, will give later. See on 86b5—d4 (p. 148).

62a2—7. The grammar and logic of this intractable sentence are much disputed. The present translation requires deletion of the comma in Burnet's text after 'as other things do' (a4), and insertion of a comma after 'for some people'. For the translation 'to be dead' (a5), see note 4. For a review of many proposed solutions see Loriaux, 50—9.

Full discussion of the sentence is impossible here. The meaning will depend upon (1) the implications of the repeated phrase 'perhaps it (will) seem(s) a matter for wonder to you' (a2, a5-6) for the truth-value of the two 'if clauses (hereafter P and Q) that follow it; and upon (2) the content of P and Q themselves.

(1) Note that Socrates is anticipating Cebes' reaction to the view of suicide he has been putting forward. He is imagining an objection Cebes might well make, pending any satisfactory rationale for the prohibition of suicide. 'Perhaps', he is suggesting, 'you will (some day) hear something (to satisfy you). But (meanwhile) it will perhaps seem a matter for wonder to you if P; and perhaps it seems a matter for wonder to you if Q.' The wording 'a matter for wonder if preserves an ambiguity in the Greek construction between (a) 'it (will) seem(s) surprising to you that P (or Q) should be the case', (b) 'it (will) seem(s) questionable to you whether P (or Q) is the case', and (c) 'it (will) seem(s) surprising to you if P (or Q) is the case'. For the ambiguity in 'wonder if see 97a2. Cf. also 95a9—b4, where the first 'wonder if is clearly interrogative, and the second conditional. Matters are further complicated by the question whether Cebes is supposed to wonder about P and Q as two separate pro­positions, or as one compound proposition to the effect that 'P and yet Q' or 'Despite P, nevertheless Q'.

Of the three variants just noted, only (a) carries any implication that Socrates for his part regards P or Q (or both) as true, (b) would imply merely that Cebes doubts whether they are true, (c) would suggest that he believes them to be probably false. But neither with (b) nor with (c) need Socrates be committed to them. It seems preferable, in fact, to regard him as uncommitted, at least with respect to Q. For the view of suicide under discussion, which is embodied in Q, is not his own (61cl0, e5). He is repeating it only at second hand (61d9—10). Not until 62b2 does he express any support for it, and he finally endorses it only in qualified terms (62c6). While it may be assumed, therefore, that P or Q (or both) would be questioned by Cebes, it is not clear that Socrates, let alone Plato, would maintain them without reservation. Cf. Laws 873c—d, and

see next note.

(2) What are P and Q? The latter (a5—7) presents no problem. Clearly, it is that 'for these men (sc. those for whom it is better to be dead), it is not holy to do good to themselves, but they must await another benefactor'. Cebes will find it paradoxical that those who would be better off dead may not dispatch themselves, but must wait for someone else. It would seem 'unreasonable' (cf.62bl— 2) to prohibit suicide in cases where it is in the agent's own interest. This is, indeed, the basic point in the whole speech. For it is precisely the apparent contradiction between a veto upon suicide and the belief that death may sometimes be for a person's own good that Socrates will now try to resolve.

The content of P, however, is highly obscure, and it is here (a2—5) that the heart of the difficulty lies. The meaning turns partly upon the referent of 'this' in 'if this alone of all things is unqualified' (PI); partly upon the relationship of that phrase to 'and it never happens to man as other things do' (P2); and partly upon the connection between P2 and 'sometimes and for some people it is better to be dead than alive' (P3). Five solutions will be considered.

'This' in PI refers to the doctrine that death is preferable to life. On this view, defended by Bluck (151-3), it will surprise Cebes that despite the universal applicability of this doctrine to man, suicide should nevertheless be forbidden. 'You will be surprised that although (PI) this (sc. death is preferable to life) is alone of all things true without exception, and (P2) it never happens for man, as do other things (sc. whose preferability depends upon circumstances), that (P3) it is only sometimes and for some people that it is better to be dead than alive, nevertheless (Q) suicide is forbidden.'

This interpretation places immense strain upon the text. To say 'it never happens that it is only sometimes and for some people that it is better to be dead than alive' seems an intolerably clumsy way of expressing the idea that it is always better to be dead than alive; and it requires a gratuitous 'only', unwarranted in the text. Moreover, neither in the Phaedo nor elsewhere is it held that death is always better than life. Nor could this plausibly be supposed as a basis for questioning the prohibition of suicide. It is a recurrent thought in Plato that some people, those who are incurably sick in body or soul, would be better off dead (e.g. Laches 195c—d, Gorgias 51 le—512a, Republic 409e—410a), but not that everyone would be. In the Phaedo it is only philosophers, and not mankind in general, for whom death is said to be preferable to life (cf.61c8—9).

'This' in PI refers to the supposition that life is preferable to death. This view, adopted with variations by Burnet, Hackforth, and Verdenius, interprets Cebes as challenging the idea that (P) life is unconditionally preferable to death; and then, granted that this idea is mistaken, as being surprised that (Q) suicide should nevertheless be forbidden. 'Perhaps it will seem questionable to you whether (P) this (sc. life is preferable to death) is alone of all things simple (i.e. admits of no distinctions according to circumstances), and (P2) it never happens as other things do, that for man (P3) it is better on some occasions and for some people to be dead than alive; and perhaps it surprises you that (Q) for those who would be better dead, suicide should nevertheless be forbidden.'

The chief difficulty here is that 'this' in PI would have to refer to a completely unstated doctrine. The supposition that life is always preferable to death might, indeed, be naturally represented as a vulgar error, rejection of which would justify Cebes' surprise at the absolute prohibition of suicide. However, it is not at all easy to supply this doctrine out of the blue. Burnet says that 'this' in PI is 'really anticipatory and only acquires a definite meaning as the sentence proceeds'. But could it 'anticipate' something that is nowhere expressly said?

The solutions still to be considered share a common starting point: they all take 'this' in PI to refer to the prohibition of suicide, which is surely its most natural referent in the context—cf.61e8 'one ought not to do that', and 62c9, where 'that' clearly refers to the same prohibition.

(iii) With Loriaux's translation (199), the meaning will be: 'You will perhaps be surprised at the idea that (PI) this doctrine (sc. the prohibition of suicide) is alone of all things (sc. doctrines) absolute, and that (P2) it never happens for man, as other things do on some occasions and for some people, that (P3) it is better to be dead than alive. And (Q) if there are some for whom death would be preferable, you are no doubt surprised that for them suicide is forbidden.' Cebes is here viewed as expressing surprise at PI and P2+P3. He takes both of them to be Socrates' opinion, and disputes PI because he rejects P2+P3. This line of thought is then developed more explicitly inQ.

This reading has the advantage of giving point to the words 'on some occasions and for some people'. They are here taken with 'as other things do', to mean 'as in other domains, where one dis­tinguishes circumstances and people'. However, the interpretation takes P2+P3 in an unnatural way. For it seems unlikely that Cebes should impute to Socrates, even as part of an objection, the view that there is never anyone for whom death is better than life. Socrates has already virtually rejected such a view in saying that philosophers will wish for death (61c8—9, d4—5). Nor could it reasonably be ascribed to him on the strength of anything he has said about the wrongness

of suicide.

L. Taran (A. J.P. 1966, 326-36) has advocated taking PI and P2 closely together, and P3 after a semicolon as a new main clause. On his reading, 'this' in PI refers to the prohibition of suicide, and it is this prohibition that is being contrasted with all others: 'It will perhaps seem surprising to you that (PI) this (sc. the prohibition of suicide) is alone of all things (sc. all prohibitions) unqualified (i.e. unaffected by the addition of good and bad), and (P2) never applies to man in the way the others (sc. other prohibitions) do; (P3) there are times when and people for whom it is better to be dead than alive; but (Q) for those for whom it is better to be dead, you are surprised if for these very men it is not holy etc.' Here P1+P2 are represented as true for Socrates but as surprising to Cebes. Socrates then asserts P3 outright, and finally gives it to Cebes as (Q) a basis for questioning the absolute character of the prohibition of suicide.

Taran's punctuation leaves P3 without a connective particle. But his solution is attractive. It simplifies the grammar and makes sound logical sense. Alternatively, if his punctuation is not accepted, the sentence may be taken as in the present translation and construed as follows:

'It will perhaps seem questionable to you whether (PI) this (sc. the prohibition of suicide) is alone of all things (sc. doctrines) unqualified, and whether (P2) it never happens, as other things do on some occasions and for some people, that (P3) it is better for man to be dead than alive; and (Q) for those for whom it is better to be dead, it perhaps seems surprising to you if for these men it is not holy etc.' PI and P2+P3 are here put forward as doctrines that Cebes might doubt ('wonder whether'), without any implication that Socrates holds them to be true. Q is likewise translated so as to leave Socrates uncommitted. Good sense is obtained by reading the sentence purely as an expression of the doubts in Cebes' mind: 'Is suicide alone', he may ask, 'unlike everything else, to be absolutely prohibited without regard to circumstances? Are there never times when, and people for whom, it is better to be dead than alive? And is it forbidden for such people to do themselves a good turn?' These doubts, expressed in indirect speech by another person, would yield the sentence in the text.

This interpretation requires the sense 'questionable' for the first occurrence of the word translated 'a matter for wonder'. The force may be, more exactly, 'Perhaps it will seem to you that one must ask in astonishment whether...' See H. Reynen,Hermes 1968,41—6.

It may be useful to summarize the above solutions in symbolic form. If D = 'a man better dead than living', K = 'a man permitted to

kill himself, T = 'true for', F = 'false for', ? = 'possibly', S = 'Socrates', and C = 'Cebes', then:

0)

PI

(x)(Dx)

TS, TC

P2+P3

~(3 x){~Dx)

TS, TC

Q

(3x) (Dx.-Kx)

TS, FC

(ii)

Pi

(x)(yDx)

FS, FC

P2+P3

(3x) (Dx)

TS, TC

Q

(3x) (Dx.~Kx)

TS, FC

(iii)

Pi

(*) (~Kx)

TS, FC

P2+P3

~(3 x)(JOx)

TS? FC *as alleged by Cebes

Q

(3x) {Dx.~Kx)

(iv)

P1+P2

(x) (~Kx)

TS, FC

P3

(3 x)(Dx)

TS, TC

Q

(3x) (Dx.~Kx)

TS, FC

(v)

Pi

(x) (~Kx)

?TS, ?FC

P2+P3

~(3x) (Dx)

FS, FC

Q

(3*) CDx.~Kx)

?TS,?FC

The above symbolism is too simple to express the variety of possible relationships between P and Q and their components. It cannot, for example, handle 'P, nevertheless Q'. Moreover, an exact interpretation should indicate not only the truth-values of P and Q, but the speakers' beliefs and attitudes regarding them, which are inadequately represented here. However, the symbolization shows the scale of the problem, and the range of solutions now in the field.

62b 1— c8. Socrates suggests two possible grounds for the prohib­ition of suicide: (1) we are placed in a 'prison' (or 'garrison') from which we should not run away (b2—6); (2) we are the possessions of the gods, and therefore may not dispose of our own lives (b6—c8). These suggestions are not sharply distinct, but they will be considered separately here.

(1) The meaning will depend upon the translation at 62b4. If 'prison' is correct (see note 1), Socrates is probably referring to the Orphic doctrine that life is an imprisonment of the soul within the body. Cf. Cratylus 400c and Gorgias 493a. The consequent analogy between suicide and escape from prison recalls the theme of the Crito. Cf. also 98e3—5. However, the central argument of the Crito against escaping from gaol would be ineffective against suicide. In that dialogue Socrates derives 'his obligation to obey the Laws of Athens from the benefits of citizenship he has enjoyed (50d—e, 51c). But life in itself confers no benefits analogous to these. He argues that he has implicitly contracted to obey the Laws, by spending his life in Athens when he might have emigrated (5Id—e, 52d—53a). But there could be no comparable 'emigration' from life, and hence no analogous opportunity to opt out of the 'contract'—except through suicide itself.

It might perhaps be held that, on the Crito view, suicide would be wrong, if expressly forbidden by law. This is just how it is treated by Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics 1138a9-13): it is illegal and therefore an offence against the state. However, no such argument is advanced here, nor would it show why suicide is 'forbidden' in the relevant sense. For this phrase (61cl0, d4, e5) strongly suggests a religious prohibition (cf. 'not holy', 62a6). To condemn suicide merely on account of its illegality would simply be to disregard the religious and moral questions it raises. For if suicide is sinful or morally wrong, presumably it is so whether it is legal or not.

The alternative translation at 62b4, 'garrison', would place suicide in a different light. It would then be viewed as desertion of a military post, and might be thought culpable as dereliction of duty or as cowardice. The latter notion appears in the Laws (873c7), in Aristotle (op.cit. 1116al2—14), and often in later literature. Clearly, however, many acts of self-destruction are not liable to the charge of cowardice. It is plainly inapplicable to altruistic self-sacrifice, to self-destruction on behalf of a worthy cause, and to the taking of one's own life to avoid morally worse alternatives. Even if 'suicide' were defined so as to exclude these cases, it would often remain debatable whether a charge of 'cowardice' was deserved. The word is itself a term of moral reproach. To apply it to conduct of any given kind is not to show why that conduct is morally wrong, but only to claim in a more specific way that it is so. Cebes' question why suicide is impermiss­ible would not be answered, therefore, by branding it as 'cowardice', but would only be reopened in a more specific form.

(2) The reasoning at 62b6—c8 prefigures the Christian orthodoxy that life is given, and may therefore be taken away, only by God. Cf.67a6—'until God himself shall release us'. The doctrine raises radical difficulties for the relation between human action and the divine will. If all things are arranged by a cosmic Intelligence, as Socrates will later suggest (97c—d), then human actions, including suicides, would seem no more capable of counteracting its designs than anything else. If all men die in God's good time, how can suicide be condemned as a usurpation of His prerogative? On this view of the divine will, as Hume says: 'When I fall upon my own sword ... I receive my death equally from the hands of the Deity as if it had proceeded from a lion, a precipice, or a fever' (Essay on Suicide). On the other hand, if acts of suicide are conceived as successful contraventions of the divine will, how are they to be dis­tinguished from other voluntary actions affecting the natural order of events, including those aimed at preserving human life? 'If I turn aside a stone which is falling upon my head, I disturb the course of nature, and I invade the peculiar province of the Almighty by lengthening out my life beyond the period which by the general laws of matter and motion he had assigned it' (Hume, ibid.). Since virtually any action might in this way be regarded as contravening the divine will, there would still be need to determine which kinds of action were impermissible, and whether suicide should be counted among them.