Plato: Phaedo

Echecrates asks Phaedo whether he was present in prison when Socrates drank the poison; Phaedo confirms and Echecrates requests an account. Phaedo explains the delay between condemnation and death: the Athenians' ship to Delos, tied to Theseus's voyage and a vow to Apollo, had been crowned, making the city unpolluted by executions. Phaedo describes his mixed feelings and names those present—Apollodorus, Critobulus, Crito, Hermogenes, Epigenes, Aeschines, Antisthenes, Ctesippus, Menexenus, and strangers Simmias, Cebes, Phaedondes, Euclid, and Terpison; Plato was ill, Aristippus and Cleombrotus in Aegina. On the last morning the jailer reports the Eleven are removing Socrates's chains. Xanthippe cries out and is led home at Socrates's instruction to Crito. Socrates, rubbing his leg, remarks on pleasure and pain following one another. Cebes relays Evenus's question about Socrates writing verse; Socrates explains a recurring dream bidding him to make music and tells Cebes to bid Evenus follow him. Simmias comments; Socrates says the philosopher will be willing to die but not take his own life. Cebes asks why suicide is wrong; Socrates, citing Philolaus, argues men are possessions of the gods. Cebes and Simmias object that a wise man should not wish to leave good rulers. Socrates agrees to defend himself. Crito relays the attendant's warning against talking. Socrates argues the true philosopher pursues death, defined as separation of soul from body, despises bodily pleasures and senses, and attains truth—absolute justice, beauty, good—through mind alone, expecting pure knowledge only after death, and expressing hope.

Socrates says he departs with hope, defining purification as the separation of the soul from the body and death as that same separation. Simmias agrees. Socrates argues that true philosophers study to release the soul, so death is least terrible to them, and that repining at death marks a lover of the body, money, or power. He discusses courage and temperance, claiming that non-philosophers are courageous from fear and temperate through intemperance, and that wisdom is the one true coin for which virtue is exchanged. He cites the founders of the mysteries and the saying about thyrsus bearers and mystics, then answers the charge that he does not grieve at leaving Simmias and Cebes. Cebes objects that men fear the soul may vanish like smoke at death. Socrates proposes an inquiry, mentioning the comic poets. He argues from the ancient doctrine that the living come from the dead, that opposites are generated from opposites, illustrating with sleeping and waking, then life and death and revival. He invokes Endymion and the chaos of Anaxagoras, concluding that souls of the dead exist. Cebes adds the doctrine that knowledge is recollection. Simmias asks for proofs; Cebes cites questioning and diagrams. Socrates develops recollection through the examples of a lyre, garment, and Simmias reminding of Cebes, then argues for absolute equality, known before birth, extending to beauty, goodness, justice, and holiness. He concludes souls existed before birth with intelligence. Simmias accepts pre-existence but says survival after death remains unproven, still fearing the soul may be scattered.

The span opens with a question about whether the soul, though generated elsewhere and existing before entering the body, might be destroyed after leaving it. Cebes states that the soul's prior existence has been proven, but its existence after death still needs proof. Socrates replies that combining this with the earlier argument—that everything living is born of the dead—supplies the proof. He suggests that Cebes and Simmias, like children, fear the wind may scatter the soul; Cebes says a child within them fears death as a hobgoblin. Socrates advises daily charming, and when asked where to find a charmer, tells Cebes to seek one throughout Hellas and among themselves. Returning to the argument, Socrates distinguishes the compounded (dissoluble, changing) from the uncompounded (indissoluble, unchanging). He and Cebes agree essences are always the same, while beautiful things change; the unchanging is invisible, the seen is changing. Body is akin to the seen, soul to the unseen. Soul rules, body serves; soul resembles the divine, body the mortal. Socrates concludes the soul is nearly indissoluble. He notes bodies, even embalmed in Egypt, may last long. The pure soul departs to the invisible divine world; the impure soul, engrossed by the corporeal, lingers as ghostly apparitions and passes into animals matching its nature—gluttons into asses, the violent into wolves. Philosophers alone reach the gods. Socrates describes philosophy releasing the soul glued to the body. After silence, Simmias raises an objection: the soul may be like a harmony of the lyre, perishing when the body's elements are disturbed. Socrates invites Cebes to speak. Cebes admits the soul's prior existence is proven but its survival after death remains unproven.

Socrates introduces a figure to answer Cebes: an old weaver who dies, whom someone claims must still be alive because a coat he wove remains whole. The claimant asks whether a man or a coat lasts longer, and, told a man lasts longer, thinks he has proven the man survives. Socrates tells Simmias this is nonsense, since the weaver outlived many coats but was outlived by the last. He applies the figure to soul and body: the soul wears out many bodies, and when the soul perishes it wears its last body, which survives it. He states he would not rely on this to prove the soul exists after death, since the soul, though born many times, may weary and perish in one of its deaths; whoever is confident in death is foolish unless he can prove the soul immortal and imperishable. Phaedo reports that the listeners felt unpleasant and shaken. Echecrates agrees, saying the harmony doctrine attracts him. Phaedo says he admired Socrates most then, comparing him to a general rallying a broken army. Socrates, playing with Phaedo's hair, speaks of shaving locks and the Argives' oath, and of Heracles and Iolaus. He warns against becoming misologists, comparing this to misanthropy, both arising from ignorance; he explains that extremes are few and most lie in the mean. He urges seeking health in argument, distinguishing himself from the partisan. Socrates restates Simmias's and Cebes's positions, both agreeing. He establishes with Simmias that a harmony cannot precede its elements, so the recollection doctrine and the soul-as-harmony doctrine conflict; Simmias keeps recollection. Socrates argues a harmony follows its elements and admits degrees, while souls do not, so souls could have no vice or virtue. Simmias agrees these consequences are inadmissible. Socrates asks whether the soul agrees with or is at variance with the body's affections.

Socrates asks whether the soul inclines against drinking when the body is thirsty and against eating when hungry, calling this one instance of the soul's opposition to the body. He recalls the acknowledgment that a soul-as-harmony cannot lead but only follow its strings, then notes the soul instead leads and coerces the affections, citing Homer's Odyssey where Odysseus reproaches his heart. He concludes the soul is not a harmony, addressing Harmonia and Cadmus regarding Cebes and Simmias. Socrates restates Cebes' objection: that proof of the soul's strength and prior existence does not establish immortality. He then recounts his youthful interest in Natural Science, his confusion over growth, greater and less, and addition and division of units. He describes reading Anaxagoras' claim that mind orders all, his delight, and his disappointment when Anaxagoras invoked air, ether, and water instead. He gives the example of his sitting being explained by bones and muscles rather than the Athenians' condemnation, distinguishing cause from condition. Failing to find the best, Socrates turns to a "second best" method: recourse to ideas, assuming absolute beauty, goodness, and greatness, whereby beautiful things become beautiful by participation. Simmias and Cebes assent together. Echecrates and Phaedo comment on the reasoning. Socrates argues Simmias is both great and small by size, not identity, and that greatness will not admit smallness. An unnamed member objects that this contradicts the earlier claim that opposites come from opposites; Socrates distinguishes concrete from essential opposites. Using heat and cold, fire and snow, odd and even, and the number three, he shows things bringing an opposite reject its opposite, citing five, ten, and ratios. Cebes agrees.

Socrates proposes replacing "safe" answers with better ones: fire rather than heat makes a body hot, fever rather than disease makes it sick, the monad rather than oddness causes odd numbers. He and his interlocutor establish that the soul brings life, that death is life's opposite, and that the soul, never admitting death, is immortal. Through parallels with the odd, snow, and fire, Socrates argues that if the immortal is imperishable, the soul cannot perish when death attacks. The interlocutor and Socrates agree God, the form of life, and the immortal never perish; thus the soul is indestructible and exists in another world. Cebes is convinced; Simmias voices only human uncertainty. Socrates urges care for the soul given eternity. Socrates describes the soul's journey after death, guided by a genius to judgment, along many-branching paths. He then describes the earth: a round body poised at the heavens' center; humans dwell in hollows, mistaking them for the surface, while the true earth above is purer, colored like a twelve-piece ball, with brighter gems and beings who converse with gods. He describes subterranean rivers swinging through Tartarus—Oceanus, Acheron, Pyriphlegethon, and Cocytus/Styx. The dead are judged: the neutral purified at Acheron, the incurable hurled into Tartarus, repentant offenders cast yearly toward victims for mercy, and the holy released to purer homes. Socrates urges pursuit of virtue and wisdom, admitting the tale is not certain but worth the venture. He says he must soon drink the poison and will bathe first. Crito asks for commands; Socrates asks them to care for themselves, then Crito asks how to bury him.

Socrates tells someone to hold him so he does not walk away, then remarks that Crito believes he is the body soon to be buried rather than the arguing Socrates. He asks his listeners to stand surety that he will depart, so Crito grieves less, and warns that false words infect the soul. He bathes with Crito, sees his children and the women, dismisses them, and returns. The jailer, servant of the Eleven, tearfully bids him drink; Socrates returns the good wishes. Crito notes time remains, but Socrates refuses delay. Socrates receives directions, asks about a libation, prays, and drinks. The companions weep; Apollodorus cries out; Socrates urges calm. His body grows cold; his last words ask Crito to pay a cock to Asclepius. Crito closes his eyes. Echecrates is addressed.