Phaedo
their consequences; the puzzle about greater and less; the resort to the
method of ideas, which to us appear only abstract terms,--these are to
be explained out of the position of Socrates and Plato in the history of
philosophy. They were living in a twilight between the sensible and
the intellectual world, and saw no way of connecting them. They
could neither explain the relation of ideas to phenomena, nor their
correlation to one another. The very idea of relation or comparison was
embarrassing to them. Yet in this intellectual uncertainty they had a
conception of a proof from results, and of a moral truth, which remained
unshaken amid the questionings of philosophy. (2) The other is a
difficulty which is touched upon in the Republic as well as in the
Phaedo, and is common to modern and ancient philosophy. Plato is not
altogether satisfied with his safe and simple method of ideas. He wants
to have proved to him by facts that all things are for the best, and
that there is one mind or design which pervades them all. But this
'power of the best' he is unable to explain; and therefore takes refuge
in universal ideas. And are not we at this day seeking to discover that
which Socrates in a glass darkly foresaw?
Some resemblances to the Greek drama may be noted in all the Dialogues
of Plato. The Phaedo is the tragedy of which Socrates is the protagonist
and Simmias and Cebes the secondary performers, standing to them in the
same relation as to Glaucon and Adeimantus in the Republic. No Dialogue
has a greater unity of subject and feeling. Plato has certainly
fulfilled the condition of Greek, or rather of all art, which requires
that scenes of death and suffering should be clothed in beauty. The
gathering of the friends at the commencement of the Dialogue, the
dismissal of Xanthippe, whose presence would have been out of place at
a philosophical discussion, but who returns again with her children to
take a final farewell, the dejection of the audience at the temporary
overthrow of the argument, the picture of Socrates playing with the
hair of Phaedo, the final scene in which Socrates alone retains his
composure--are masterpieces of art. And the chorus at the end might have
interpreted the feeling of the play: 'There can no evil happen to a good
man in life or death.'
'The art of concealing art' is nowhere more perfect than in those
writings of Plato which describe the trial and death of Socrates. Their
charm is their simplicity, which gives them verisimilitude; and yet
they touch, as if incidentally, and because they were suitable to the
occasion, on some of the deepest truths of philosophy. There is nothing
in any tragedy, ancient or modern, nothing in poetry or history (with
one exception), like the last hours of Socrates in Plato. The master
could not be more fitly occupied at such a time than in discoursing of
immortality; nor the disciples more divinely consoled. The arguments,
taken in the spirit and not in the letter, are our arguments; and
Socrates by anticipation may be even thought to refute some 'eccentric
notions; current in our own age. For there are philosophers among
ourselves who do not seem to understand how much stronger is the power
of intelligence, or of the best, than of Atlas, or mechanical force.
How far the words attributed to Socrates were actually uttered by him we
forbear to ask; for no answer can be given to this question. And it
is better to resign ourselves to the feeling of a great work, than to
linger among critical uncertainties.
PHAEDO
PERSONS OF THE DIALOGUE:
Phaedo, who is the narrator of the dialogue to Echecrates of Phlius.
Socrates, Apollodorus, Simmias, Cebes, Crito and an Attendant of the
Prison.
SCENE: The Prison of Socrates.
PLACE OF THE NARRATION: Phlius.
ECHECRATES: Were you yourself, Phaedo, in the prison with Socrates on
the day when he drank the poison?
PHAEDO: Yes, Echecrates, I was.
ECHECRATES: I should so like to hear about his death. What did he say in
his last hours? We were informed that he died by taking poison, but no
one knew anything more; for no Phliasian ever goes to Athens now, and it
is a long time since any stranger from Athens has found his way hither;
so that we had no clear account.
PHAEDO: Did you not hear of the proceedings at the trial?
ECHECRATES: Yes; some one told us about the trial, and we could not
understand why, having been condemned, he should have been put to death,
not at the time, but long afterwards. What was the reason of this?
PHAEDO: An accident, Echecrates: the stern of the ship which the
Athenians send to Delos happened to have been crowned on the day before
he was tried.
ECHECRATES: What is this ship?
PHAEDO: It is the ship in which, according to Athenian tradition,
Theseus went to Crete when he took with him the fourteen youths, and was
the saviour of them and of himself. And they were said to have vowed
to Apollo at the time, that if they were saved they would send a yearly
mission to Delos. Now this custom still continues, and the whole period
of the voyage to and from Delos, beginning when the priest of Apollo
crowns the stern of the ship, is a holy season, during which the city is
not allowed to be polluted by public executions; and when the vessel
is detained by contrary winds, the time spent in going and returning
is very considerable. As I was saying, the ship was crowned on the day
before the trial, and this was the reason why Socrates lay in prison and
was not put to death until long after he was condemned.
ECHECRATES: What was the manner of his death, Phaedo? What was said or
done? And which of his friends were with him? Or did the authorities
forbid them to be present--so that he had no friends near him when he
died?
PHAEDO: No; there were several of them with him.
ECHECRATES: If you have nothing to do, I wish that you would tell me
what passed, as exactly as you can.
PHAEDO: I have nothing at all to do, and will try to gratify your wish.
To be reminded of Socrates is always the greatest delight to me, whether
I speak myself or hear another speak of him.
ECHECRATES: You will have listeners who are of the same mind with you,
and I hope that you will be as exact as you can.
PHAEDO: I had a singular feeling at being in his company. For I
could hardly believe that I was present at the death of a friend, and
therefore I did not pity him, Echecrates; he died so fearlessly, and
his words and bearing were so noble and gracious, that to me he appeared
blessed. I thought that in going to the other world he could not be
without a divine call, and that he would be happy, if any man ever was,
when he arrived there, and therefore I did not pity him as might have
seemed natural at such an hour. But I had not the pleasure which I
usually feel in philosophical discourse (for philosophy was the theme
of which we spoke). I was pleased, but in the pleasure there was also a
strange admixture of pain; for I reflected that he was soon to die, and
this double feeling was shared by us all; we were laughing and weeping
by turns, especially the excitable Apollodorus--you know the sort of
man?
ECHECRATES: Yes.
PHAEDO: He was quite beside himself; and I and all of us were greatly
moved.
ECHECRATES: Who were present?
PHAEDO: Of native Athenians there were, besides Apollodorus, Critobulus
and his father Crito, Hermogenes, Epigenes, Aeschines, Antisthenes;
likewise Ctesippus of the deme of Paeania, Menexenus, and some others;
Plato, if I am not mistaken, was ill.
ECHECRATES: Were there any strangers?
PHAEDO: Yes, there were; Simmias the Theban, and Cebes, and Phaedondes;
Euclid and Terpison, who came from Megara.
ECHECRATES: And was Aristippus there, and Cleombrotus?
PHAEDO: No, they were said to be in Aegina.
ECHECRATES: Any one else?
PHAEDO: I think that these were nearly all.
ECHECRATES: Well, and what did you talk about?
PHAEDO: I will begin at the beginning, and endeavour to repeat the
entire conversation. On the previous days we had been in the habit of
assembling early in the morning at the court in which the trial took
place, and which is not far from the prison. There we used to wait
talking with one another until the opening of the doors (for they were
not opened very early); then we went in and generally passed the day
with Socrates. On the last morning we assembled sooner than usual,
having heard on the day before when we quitted the prison in the evening
that the sacred ship had come from Delos, and so we arranged to meet
very early at the accustomed place. On our arrival the jailer who
answered the door, instead of admitting us, came out and told us to stay
until he called us. 'For the Eleven,' he said, 'are now with Socrates;
they are taking off his chains, and giving orders that he is to die
to-day.' He soon returned and said that we might come in. On entering we
found Socrates just released from chains, and Xanthippe, whom you know,
sitting by him, and holding his child in her arms. When she saw us she
uttered a cry and said, as women will: 'O Socrates, this is the last
time that either you will converse with your friends, or they with you.'
Socrates turned to Crito and said: 'Crito, let some one take her home.'
Some of Crito's people accordingly led her away, crying out and beating
herself. And when she was gone, Socrates, sitting up on the couch, bent
and rubbed his leg, saying, as he was rubbing: How singular is the
thing called pleasure, and how curiously related to pain, which might be
thought to be the opposite of it; for they are never present to a man at
the same instant, and yet he who pursues either is generally compelled
to take the other; their bodies are two, but they are joined by a single
head. And I cannot help thinking that if Aesop had remembered them, he
would have made a fable about God trying to reconcile their strife, and
how, when he could not, he fastened their heads together; and this is
the reason why when one comes the other follows, as I know by my own
experience now, when after the pain in my leg which was caused by the
chain pleasure appears to succeed.
Upon this Cebes said: I am glad, Socrates, that you have mentioned the
name of Aesop. For it reminds me of a question which has been asked by
many, and was asked of me only the day before yesterday by Evenus the
poet--he will be sure to ask it again, and therefore if you would like
me to have an answer ready for him, you may as well tell me what I
should say to him:--he wanted to know why you, who never before wrote
a line of poetry, now that you are in prison are turning Aesop's fables
into verse, and also composing that hymn in honour of Apollo.
Tell him, Cebes, he replied, what is the truth--that I had no idea of
rivalling him or his poems; to do so, as I knew, would be no easy task.
But I wanted to see whether I could purge away a scruple which I felt
about the meaning of certain dreams. In the course of my life I have
often had intimations in dreams 'that I should compose music.' The same
dream came to me sometimes in one form, and sometimes in another, but
always saying the same or nearly the same words: 'Cultivate and make
music,' said the dream. And hitherto I had imagined that this was only
intended to exhort and encourage me in the study of philosophy, which
has been the pursuit of my life, and is the noblest and best of music.
The dream was bidding me do what I was already doing, in the same way
that the competitor in a race is bidden by the spectators to run when he
is already running. But I was not certain of this, for the dream might
have meant music in the popular sense of the word, and being under
sentence of death, and the festival giving me a respite, I thought that
it would be safer for me to satisfy the scruple, and, in obedience to