Phaedo

Plato
(Translator: Benjamin Jowett)

Published: -400
Type(s): Philosophy
Source: http://www.gutenberg.org
Phaedo 2

About Plato:
Plato (Greek: Plátn, "wide, broad-shouldered") (428/427 BC – 348/347 BC) was an
ancient Greek philosopher, the second of the great trio of ancient Greeks –Socrates,
Plato, originally named Aristocles, and Aristotle– who between them laid the
philosophical foundations of Western culture. Plato was also a mathematician,
writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Academy in Athens, the first
institution of higher learning in the western world. Plato is widely believed to
have been a student of Socrates and to have been deeply influenced by his teacher’s
unjust death.
Plato’s brilliance as a writer and thinker can be witnessed by reading his Socratic
dialogues. Some of the dialogues, letters, and other works that are ascribed to him
are considered spurious. Plato is thought to have lectured at the Academy, although
the pedagogical function of his dialogues, if any, is not known with certainty. They
have historically been used to teach philosophy, logic, rhetoric, mathematics, and
other subjects about which he wrote.
Source: Wikipedia

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• Euthyphro (-400)
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 Persons of the dialogue:
Phaedo, who is the narrator of the dialogue to Echecrates of Phlius
Socrates
Apollodorus
Simmias
Cebes
Crito
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.

Ech. I wish that you would tell me 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 a long time has elapsed since
any Athenian found his way to Phlius, and therefore we had no clear account.

Phaed. Did you not hear of the proceedings at the trial?

Ech. Yes; someone told us about the trial, and we could not understand why,
having been condemned, he was put to death, as appeared, not at the time, but long
afterwards. What was the reason of this?

Phaed. An accident, Echecrates. The reason was that the stern of the ship which
the Athenians send to Delos happened to have been crowned on the day before he
was tried.

Ech. What is this ship?

Phaed. This is the ship in which, as the Athenians say, 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 make an annual pilgrimage 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 often, when the vessel is
detained by adverse winds, there may be a very considerable delay. 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.

Ech. What was the manner of his death, Phaedo? What was said or done? And
which of his friends had he with him? Or were they not allowed by the authorities
to be present? And did he die alone?
Phaedo 4

Phaed. No; there were several of his friends with him.

Ech. If you have nothing to do, I wish that you would tell me what passed, as
exactly as you can.

Phaed. I have nothing to do, and will try to gratify your wish. For to me,
too, there is no greater pleasure than to have Socrates brought to my recollection,
whether I speak myself or hear another speak of him.

Ech. You will have listeners who are of the same mind with you, and I hope that
you will be as exact as you can.

Phaed. I remember the strange feeling which came over me at being with him.
For I could hardly believe that I was present at the death of a friend, and therefore I
did not pity him, Echecrates; his mien and his language were so noble and fearless
in the hour of death 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
seem natural at such a time. But neither could I feel the pleasure which I usually
felt in philosophical discourse (for philosophy was the theme of which we spoke). I
was pleased, and I was also pained, because I knew that he was soon to die, and
this strange mixture of feeling was shared by us all; we were laughing and weeping
by turns, especially the excitable Apollodorus-you know the sort of man?

Ech. Yes.

Phaed. He was quite overcome; and I myself and all of us were greatly moved.

Ech. Who were present?

Phaed. Of native Athenians there were, besides Apollodorus, Critobulus and his
father Crito, Hermogenes, Epigenes, Aeschines, and Antisthenes; likewise Ctesippus
of the deme of Paeania, Menexenus, and some others; but Plato, if I am not mistaken,
was ill.

Ech. Were there any strangers?

Phaed. Yes, there were; Simmias the Theban, and Cebes, and Phaedondes;
Euclid and Terpison, who came from Megara.

Ech. And was Aristippus there, and Cleombrotus?

Phaed. No, they were said to be in Aegina.

Ech. Anyone else?

Phaed. I think that these were about all.

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Phaedo 5

Ech. And what was the discourse of which you spoke?

Phaed. I will begin at the beginning, and endeavor to repeat the entire conversa-
tion. You must understand that we had been previously in the habit of assembling
early in the morning at the court in which the trial was held, and which is not far
from the prison. There we remained talking with one another until the opening
of the prison doors (for they were not opened very early), and then went in and
generally passed the day with Socrates. On the last morning the meeting was earlier
than usual; this was owing to our having heard on the previous evening that the
sacred ship had arrived from Delos, and therefore we agreed to meet very early at
the accustomed place. On our going to the prison, the jailer who answered the door,
instead of admitting us, came out and bade us wait and he would call 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 someone 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, began to bend and rub his leg, saying, as he rubbed: "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 never come to a man together, and yet he
who pursues either of them is generally compelled to take the other. They are two,
and yet they grow together out of one head or stem; and I cannot help thinking
that if Aesop had noticed them, he would have made a fable about God trying to
reconcile their strife, and when he could not, he fastened their heads together; and
this is the reason why when one comes the other follows, as I find in my own case
pleasure comes following after the pain in my leg, which was caused by the chain."
Upon this Cebes said: I am very glad indeed, Socrates, that you mentioned the
name of Aesop. For that reminds me of a question which has been asked by others,
and was asked of me only the day before yesterday by Evenus the poet, and as he
will be sure to ask again, you may as well tell me what I should say to him, if you
would like him to have an answer. He wanted to know why you who never before
wrote a line of poetry, now that you are in prison are putting Aesop into verse, and
also composing that hymn in honor of Apollo.
Tell him, Cebes, he replied, that I had no idea of rivalling him or his poems;
which is the truth, for I knew that I could not do that. But I wanted to see whether
I could purge away a scruple which I felt about certain dreams. In the course of
my life I have often had intimations in dreams "that I should make 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: Make and cultivate 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 always been the pursuit of my
life, and is the noblest and best of music. The dream was bidding me to 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, as
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 I should

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Phaedo 6

be safer if I satisfied the scruple, and, in obedience to the dream, composed a few
verses before I departed. And first I made a hymn in honor of the god of the festival,
and then considering that a poet, if he is really to be a poet or maker, should not
only put words together but make stories, and as I have no invention, I took some
fables of esop, which I had ready at hand and knew, and turned them into verse.
Tell Evenus this, and bid him be of good cheer; that I would have him come after me
if he be a wise man, and not tarry; and that to-day I am likely to be going, for the
Athenians say that I must.
Simmias said: What a message for such a man! having been a frequent companion
of his, I should say that, as far as I know him, he will never take your advice unless
he is obliged.
Why, said Socrates,-is not Evenus a philosopher?
I think that he is, said Simmias.
Then he, or any man who has the spirit of philosophy, will be willing to die,
though he will not take his own life, for that is held not to be right.
Here he changed his position, and put his legs off the couch on to the ground, and
during the rest of the conversation he remained sitting.
Why do you say, inquired Cebes, that a man ought not to take his own life, but
that the philosopher will be ready to follow the dying?
Socrates replied: And have you, Cebes and Simmias, who are acquainted with
Philolaus, never heard him speak of this?
I never understood him, Socrates.
My words, too, are only an echo; but I am very willing to say what I have heard:
and indeed, as I am going to another place, I ought to be thinking and talking of
the nature of the pilgrimage which I am about to make. What can I do better in the
interval between this and the setting of the sun?
Then tell me, Socrates, why is suicide held not to be right? as I have certainly
heard Philolaus affirm when he was staying with us at Thebes: and there are others
who say the same, although none of them has ever made me understand him.
But do your best, replied Socrates, and the day may come when you will un-
derstand. I suppose that you wonder why, as most things which are evil may be
accidentally good, this is to be the only exception (for may not death, too, be better
than life in some cases?), and why, when a man is better dead, he is not permitted
to be his own benefactor, but must wait for the hand of another.
By Jupiter! yes, indeed, said Cebes, laughing, and speaking in his native Doric.
I admit the appearance of inconsistency, replied Socrates, but there may not be
any real inconsistency after all in this. There is a doctrine uttered in secret that
man is a prisoner who has no right to open the door of his prison and run away; this
is a great mystery which I do not quite understand. Yet I, too, believe that the gods
are our guardians, and that we are a possession of theirs. Do you not agree?
Yes, I agree to that, said Cebes.
And if one of your own possessions, an ox or an ass, for example took the liberty
of putting himself out of the way when you had given no intimation of your wish
that he should die, would you not be angry with him, and would you not punish him
if you could?
Certainly, replied Cebes.
Then there may be reason in saying that a man should wait, and not take his
own life until God summons him, as he is now summoning me.
Yes, Socrates, said Cebes, there is surely reason in that. And yet how can you

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Phaedo 7

reconcile this seemingly true belief that God is our guardian and we his possessions,
with that willingness to die which we were attributing to the philosopher? That the
wisest of men should be willing to leave this service in which they are ruled by the
gods who are the best of rulers is not reasonable, for surely no wise man thinks that
when set at liberty he can take better care of himself than the gods take of him. A
fool may perhaps think this-he may argue that he had better run away from his
master, not considering that his duty is to remain to the end, and not to run away
from the good, and that there is no sense in his running away. But the wise man
will want to be ever with him who is better than himself. Now this, Socrates, is the
reverse of what was just now said; for upon this view the wise man should sorrow
and the fool rejoice at passing out of life.
The earnestness of Cebes seemed to please Socrates. Here, said he, turning to us,
is a man who is always inquiring, and is not to be convinced all in a moment, nor by
every argument.
And in this case, added Simmias, his objection does appear to me to have some
force. For what can be the meaning of a truly wise man wanting to fly away and
lightly leave a master who is better than himself? And I rather imagine that Cebes
is referring to you; he thinks that you are too ready to leave us, and too ready to
leave the gods who, as you acknowledge, are our good rulers.
Yes, replied Socrates; there is reason in that. And this indictment you think that
I ought to answer as if I were in court?
That is what we should like, said Simmias.
Then I must try to make a better impression upon you than I did when defending
myself before the judges. For I am quite ready to acknowledge, Simmias and Cebes,
that I ought to be grieved at death, if I were not persuaded that I am going to other
gods who are wise and good (of this I am as certain as I can be of anything of the
sort) and to men departed (though I am not so certain of this), who are better than
those whom I leave behind; and therefore I do not grieve as I might have done, for
I have good hope that there is yet something remaining for the dead, and, as has
been said of old, some far better thing for the good than for the evil.
But do you mean to take away your thoughts with you, Socrates? said Simmias.
Will you not communicate them to us?-the benefit is one in which we too may hope
to share. Moreover, if you succeed in convincing us, that will be an answer to the
charge against yourself.
I will do my best, replied Socrates. But you must first let me hear what Crito
wants; he was going to say something to me.
Only this, Socrates, replied Crito: the attendant who is to give you the poison
has been telling me that you are not to talk much, and he wants me to let you know
this; for that by talking heat is increased, and this interferes with the action of the
poison; those who excite themselves are sometimes obliged to drink the poison two
or three times.
Then, said Socrates, let him mind his business and be prepared to give the poison
two or three times, if necessary; that is all.
I was almost certain that you would say that, replied Crito; but I was obliged to
satisfy him.
Never mind him, he said.
And now I will make answer to you, O my judges, and show that he who has
lived as a true philosopher has reason to be of good cheer when he is about to die,
and that after death he may hope to receive the greatest good in the other world.

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Phaedo 8

And how this may be, Simmias and Cebes, I will endeavor to explain. For I deem
that the true disciple of philosophy is likely to be misunderstood by other men; they
do not perceive that he is ever pursuing death and dying; and if this is true, why,
having had the desire of death all his life long, should he repine at the arrival of
that which he has been always pursuing and desiring?
Simmias laughed and said: Though not in a laughing humor, I swear that I
cannot help laughing when I think what the wicked world will say when they hear
this. They will say that this is very true, and our people at home will agree with
them in saying that the life which philosophers desire is truly death, and that they
have found them out to be deserving of the death which they desire.
And they are right, Simmias, in saying this, with the exception of the words
"They have found them out"; for they have not found out what is the nature of this
death which the true philosopher desires, or how he deserves or desires death. But
let us leave them and have a word with ourselves: Do we believe that there is such
a thing as death?
To be sure, replied Simmias.
And is this anything but the separation of soul and body? And being dead is the
attainment of this separation; when the soul exists in herself, and is parted from
the body and the body is parted from the soul-that is death?
Exactly: that and nothing else, he replied.
And what do you say of another question, my friend, about which I should like to
have your opinion, and the answer to which will probably throw light on our present
inquiry: Do you think that the philosopher ought to care about the pleasures-if they
are to be called pleasures-of eating and drinking?
Certainly not, answered Simmias.
And what do you say of the pleasures of love-should he care about them?
By no means.
And will he think much of the other ways of indulging the body-for example, the
acquisition of costly raiment, or sandals, or other adornments of the body? Instead
of caring about them, does he not rather despise anything more than nature needs?
What do you say?
I should say the true philosopher would despise them.
Would you not say that he is entirely concerned with the soul and not with the
body? He would like, as far as he can, to be quit of the body and turn to the soul.
That is true.
In matters of this sort philosophers, above all other men, may be observed in
every sort of way to dissever the soul from the body.
That is true.
Whereas, Simmias, the rest of the world are of opinion that a life which has no
bodily pleasures and no part in them is not worth having; but that he who thinks
nothing of bodily pleasures is almost as though he were dead.
That is quite true.
What again shall we say of the actual acquirement of knowledge?-is the body, if
invited to share in the inquiry, a hinderer or a helper? I mean to say, have sight
and hearing any truth in them? Are they not, as the poets are always telling us,
inaccurate witnesses? and yet, if even they are inaccurate and indistinct, what is to
be said of the other senses?-for you will allow that they are the best of them?
Certainly, he replied.

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Phaedo 9

Then when does the soul attain truth?-for in attempting to consider anything in
company with the body she is obviously deceived.
Yes, that is true.
Then must not existence be revealed to her in thought, if at all?
Yes.
And thought is best when the mind is gathered into herself and none of these
things trouble her-neither sounds nor sights nor pain nor any pleasure-when she
has as little as possible to do with the body, and has no bodily sense or feeling, but
is aspiring after being?
That is true.
And in this the philosopher dishonors the body; his soul runs away from the body
and desires to be alone and by herself?
That is true.
Well, but there is another thing, Simmias: Is there or is there not an absolute
justice?
Assuredly there is.
And an absolute beauty and absolute good?
Of course.
But did you ever behold any of them with your eyes?
Certainly not.
Or did you ever reach them with any other bodily sense? (and I speak not of
these alone, but of absolute greatness, and health, and strength, and of the essence
or true nature of everything). Has the reality of them ever been perceived by you
through the bodily organs? or rather, is not the nearest approach to the knowledge
of their several natures made by him who so orders his intellectual vision as to have
the most exact conception of the essence of that which he considers?
Certainly.
And he attains to the knowledge of them in their highest purity who goes to each
of them with the mind alone, not allowing when in the act of thought the intrusion
or introduction of sight or any other sense in the company of reason, but with the
very light of the mind in her clearness penetrates into the very fight of truth in each;
he has got rid, as far as he can, of eyes and ears and of the whole body, which he
conceives of only as a disturbing element, hindering the soul from the acquisition of
knowledge when in company with her-is not this the sort of man who, if ever man
did, is likely to attain the knowledge of existence?
There is admirable truth in that, Socrates, replied Simmias.
And when they consider all this, must not true philosophers make a reflection, of
which they will speak to one another in such words as these: We have found, they
will say, a path of speculation which seems to bring us and the argument to the
conclusion that while we are in the body, and while the soul is mingled with this
mass of evil, our desire will not be satisfied, and our desire is of the truth. For the
body is a source of endless trouble to us by reason of the mere requirement of food;
and also is liable to diseases which overtake and impede us in the search after truth:
and by filling us so full of loves, and lusts, and fears, and fancies, and idols, and
every sort of folly, prevents our ever having, as people say, so much as a thought.
For whence come wars, and fightings, and factions? whence but from the body and
the lusts of the body? For wars are occasioned by the love of money, and money has
to be acquired for the sake and in the service of the body; and in consequence of
all these things the time which ought to be given to philosophy is lost. Moreover,

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Phaedo 10

if there is time and an inclination toward philosophy, yet the body introduces a
turmoil and confusion and fear into the course of speculation, and hinders us from
seeing the truth: and all experience shows that if we would have pure knowledge
of anything we must be quit of the body, and the soul in herself must behold all
things in themselves: then I suppose that we shall attain that which we desire,
and of which we say that we are lovers, and that is wisdom, not while we live, but
after death, as the argument shows; for if while in company with the body the soul
cannot have pure knowledge, one of two things seems to follow-either knowledge
is not to be attained at all, or, if at all, after death. For then, and not till then, the
soul will be in herself alone and without the body. In this present life, I reckon
that we make the nearest approach to knowledge when we have the least possible
concern or interest in the body, and are not saturated with the bodily nature, but
remain pure until the hour when God himself is pleased to release us. And then the
foolishness of the body will be cleared away and we shall be pure and hold converse
with other pure souls, and know of ourselves the clear light everywhere; and this
is surely the light of truth. For no impure thing is allowed to approach the pure.
These are the sort of words, Simmias, which the true lovers of wisdom cannot help
saying to one another, and thinking. You will agree with me in that?
Certainly, Socrates.
But if this is true, O my friend, then there is great hope that, going whither I go,
I shall there be satisfied with that which has been the chief concern of you and me
in our past lives. And now that the hour of departure is appointed to me, this is the
hope with which I depart, and not I only, but every man who believes that he has
his mind purified.
Certainly, replied Simmias.
And what is purification but the separation of the soul from the body, as I was
saying before; the habit of the soul gathering and collecting herself into herself, out
of all the courses of the body; the dwelling in her own place alone, as in another life,
so also in this, as far as she can; the release of the soul from the chains of the body?
Very true, he said.
And what is that which is termed death, but this very separation and release of
the soul from the body?
To be sure, he said.
And the true philosophers, and they only, study and are eager to release the soul.
Is not the separation and release of the soul from the body their especial study?
That is true.
And as I was saying at first, there would be a ridiculous contradiction in men
studying to live as nearly as they can in a state of death, and yet repining when
death comes.
Certainly.
Then, Simmias, as the true philosophers are ever studying death, to them, of all
men, death is the least terrible. Look at the matter in this way: how inconsistent of
them to have been always enemies of the body, and wanting to have the soul alone,
and when this is granted to them, to be trembling and repining; instead of rejoicing
at their departing to that place where, when they arrive, they hope to gain that
which in life they loved (and this was wisdom), and at the same time to be rid of the
company of their enemy. Many a man has been willing to go to the world below in
the hope of seeing there an earthly love, or wife, or son, and conversing with them.
And will he who is a true lover of wisdom, and is persuaded in like manner that

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Phaedo 11

only in the world below he can worthily enjoy her, still repine at death? Will he not
depart with joy? Surely he will, my friend, if he be a true philosopher. For he will
have a firm conviction that there only, and nowhere else, he can find wisdom in her
purity. And if this be true, he would be very absurd, as I was saying, if he were to
fear death.
He would, indeed, replied Simmias.
And when you see a man who is repining at the approach of death, is not his
reluctance a sufficient proof that he is not a lover of wisdom, but a lover of the body,
and probably at the same time a lover of either money or power, or both?
That is very true, he replied.
There is a virtue, Simmias, which is named courage. Is not that a special attribute
of the philosopher?
Certainly.
Again, there is temperance. Is not the calm, and control, and disdain of the
passions which even the many call temperance, a quality belonging only to those
who despise the body and live in philosophy?
That is not to be denied.
For the courage and temperance of other men, if you will consider them, are
really a contradiction.
How is that, Socrates?
Well, he said, you are aware that death is regarded by men in general as a great
evil.
That is true, he said.
And do not courageous men endure death because they are afraid of yet greater
evils?
That is true.
Then all but the philosophers are courageous only from fear, and because they
are afraid; and yet that a man should be courageous from fear, and because he is a
coward, is surely a strange thing.
Very true.
And are not the temperate exactly in the same case? They are temperate because
they are intemperate-which may seem to be a contradiction, but is nevertheless the
sort of thing which happens with this foolish temperance. For there are pleasures
which they must have, and are afraid of losing; and therefore they abstain from one
class of pleasures because they are overcome by another: and whereas intemperance
is defined as "being under the dominion of pleasure," they overcome only because
they are overcome by pleasure. And that is what I mean by saying that they are
temperate through intemperance.
That appears to be true.
Yet the exchange of one fear or pleasure or pain for another fear or pleasure or
pain, which are measured like coins, the greater with the less, is not the exchange of
virtue. O my dear Simmias, is there not one true coin for which all things ought to
exchange?-and that is wisdom; and only in exchange for this, and in company with
this, is anything truly bought or sold, whether courage or temperance or justice. And
is not all true virtue the companion of wisdom, no matter what fears or pleasures
or other similar goods or evils may or may not attend her? But the virtue which
is made up of these goods, when they are severed from wisdom and exchanged
with one another, is a shadow of virtue only, nor is there any freedom or health or
truth in her; but in the true exchange there is a purging away of all these things,

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Phaedo 12

and temperance, and justice, and courage, and wisdom herself are a purgation of
them. And I conceive that the founders of the mysteries had a real meaning and
were not mere triflers when they intimated in a figure long ago that he who passes
unsanctified and uninitiated into the world below will live in a slough, but that
he who arrives there after initiation and purification will dwell with the gods. For
"many," as they say in the mysteries, "are the thyrsus bearers, but few are the
mystics,"-meaning, as I interpret the words, the true philosophers. In the number of
whom I have been seeking, according to my ability, to find a place during my whole
life; whether I have sought in a right way or not, and whether I have succeeded or
not, I shall truly know in a little while, if God will, when I myself arrive in the other
world: that is my belief. And now, Simmias and Cebes, I have answered those who
charge me with not grieving or repining at parting from you and my masters in this
world; and I am right in not repining, for I believe that I shall find other masters
and friends who are as good in the world below. But all men cannot believe this, and
I shall be glad if my words have any more success with you than with the judges of
the Athenians.
Cebes answered: I agree, Socrates, in the greater part of what you say. But in
what relates to the soul, men are apt to be incredulous; they fear that when she
leaves the body her place may be nowhere, and that on the very day of death she
may be destroyed and perish-immediately on her release from the body, issuing forth
like smoke or air and vanishing away into nothingness. For if she could only hold
together and be herself after she was released from the evils of the body, there would
be good reason to hope, Socrates, that what you say is true. But much persuasion
and many arguments are required in order to prove that when the man is dead the
soul yet exists, and has any force of intelligence.
True, Cebes, said Socrates; and shall I suggest that we talk a little of the proba-
bilities of these things?
I am sure, said Cebes, that I should gready like to know your opinion about them.
I reckon, said Socrates, that no one who heard me now, not even if he were one of
my old enemies, the comic poets, could accuse me of idle talking about matters in
which I have no concern. Let us, then, if you please, proceed with the inquiry.
Whether the souls of men after death are or are not in the world below, is a
question which may be argued in this manner: The ancient doctrine of which I have
been speaking affirms that they go from this into the other world, and return hither,
and are born from the dead. Now if this be true, and the living come from the dead,
then our souls must be in the other world, for if not, how could they be born again?
And this would be conclusive, if there were any real evidence that the living are
only born from the dead; but if there is no evidence of this, then other arguments
will have to be adduced.
That is very true, replied Cebes.
Then let us consider this question, not in relation to man only, but in relation
to animals generally, and to plants, and to everything of which there is generation,
and the proof will be easier. Are not all things which have opposites generated out
of their opposites? I mean such things as good and evil, just and unjust-and there
are innumerable other opposites which are generated out of opposites. And I want
to show that this holds universally of all opposites; I mean to say, for example, that
anything which becomes greater must become greater after being less.
True.
And that which becomes less must have been once greater and then become less.

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Phaedo 13

Yes.
And the weaker is generated from the stronger, and the swifter from the slower.
Very true.
And the worse is from the better, and the more just is from the more unjust.
Of course.
And is this true of all opposites? and are we convinced that all of them are
generated out of opposites?
Yes.
And in this universal opposition of all things, are there not also two intermediate
processes which are ever going on, from one to the other, and back again; where
there is a greater and a less there is also an intermediate process of increase and
diminution, and that which grows is said to wax, and that which decays to wane?
Yes, he said.
And there are many other processes, such as division and composition, cooling
and heating, which equally involve a passage into and out of one another. And
this holds of all opposites, even though not always expressed in words-they are
generated out of one another, and there is a passing or process from one to the other
of them?
Very true, he replied.
Well, and is there not an opposite of life, as sleep is the opposite of waking?
True, he said.
And what is that?
Death, he answered.
And these, then, are generated, if they are opposites, the one from the other, and
have there their two intermediate processes also?
Of course.
Now, said Socrates, I will analyze one of the two pairs of opposites which I have
mentioned to you, and also its intermediate processes, and you shall analyze the
other to me. The state of sleep is opposed to the state of waking, and out of sleeping
waking is generated, and out of waking, sleeping, and the process of generation is in
the one case falling asleep, and in the other waking up. Are you agreed about that?
Quite agreed.
Then suppose that you analyze life and death to me in the same manner. Is not
death opposed to life?
Yes.
And they are generated one from the other?
Yes.
What is generated from life?
Death.
And what from death?
I can only say in answer-life.
Then the living, whether things or persons, Cebes, are generated from the dead?
That is clear, he replied.
Then the inference is, that our souls are in the world below?
That is true.
And one of the two processes or generations is visible-for surely the act of dying
is visible?
Surely, he said.

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And may not the other be inferred as the complement of nature, who is not to be
supposed to go on one leg only? And if not, a corresponding process of generation in
death must also be assigned to her?
Certainly, he replied.
And what is that process?
Revival.
And revival, if there be such a thing, is the birth of the dead into the world of the
living?
Quite true.
Then there is a new way in which we arrive at the inference that the living come
from the dead, just as the dead come from the living; and if this is true, then the
souls of the dead must be in some place out of which they come again. And this, as I
think, has been satisfactorily proved.
Yes, Socrates, he said; all this seems to flow necessarily out of our previous
admissions.
And that these admissions are not unfair, Cebes, he said, may be shown, as I
think, in this way: If generation were in a straight line only, and there were no
compensation or circle in nature, no turn or return into one another, then you know
that all things would at last have the same form and pass into the same state, and
there would be no more generation of them.
What do you mean? he said.
A simple thing enough, which I will illustrate by the case of sleep, he replied.
You know that if there were no compensation of sleeping and waking, the story of
the sleeping Endymion would in the end have no meaning, because all other things
would be asleep, too, and he would not be thought of. Or if there were composition
only, and no division of substances, then the chaos of Anaxagoras would come again.
And in like manner, my dear Cebes, if all things which partook of life were to die,
and after they were dead remained in the form of death, and did not come to life
again, all would at last die, and nothing would be alive-how could this be otherwise?
For if the living spring from any others who are not the dead, and they die, must
not all things at last be swallowed up in death?
There is no escape from that, Socrates, said Cebes; and I think that what you say
is entirely true.
Yes, he said, Cebes, I entirely think so, too; and we are not walking in a vain
imagination; but I am confident in the belief that there truly is such a thing as
living again, and that the living spring from the dead, and that the souls of the dead
are in existence, and that the good souls have a better portion than the evil.
Cebes added: Your favorite doctrine, Socrates, that knowledge is simply recol-
lection, if true, also necessarily implies a previous time in which we learned that
which we now recollect. But this would be impossible unless our soul was in some
place before existing in the human form; here, then, is another argument of the
soul’s immortality.
But tell me, Cebes, said Simmias, interposing, what proofs are given of this
doctrine of recollection? I am not very sure at this moment that I remember them.
One excellent proof, said Cebes, is afforded by questions. If you put a question to
a person in a right way, he will give a true answer of himself; but how could he do
this unless there were knowledge and right reason already in him? And this is most
clearly shown when he is taken to a diagram or to anything of that sort.
But if, said Socrates, you are still incredulous, Simmias, I would ask you whether

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you may not agree with me when you look at the matter in another way; I mean, if
you are still incredulous as to whether knowledge is recollection.
Incredulous, I am not, said Simmias; but I want to have this doctrine of recollec-
tion brought to my own recollection, and, from what Cebes has said, I am beginning
to recollect and be convinced; but I should still like to hear what more you have to
say.
This is what I would say, he replied: We should agree, if I am not mistaken, that
what a man recollects he must have known at some previous time.
Very true.
And what is the nature of this recollection? And, in asking this, I mean to ask
whether, when a person has already seen or heard or in any way perceived anything,
and he knows not only that, but something else of which he has not the same, but
another knowledge, we may not fairly say that he recollects that which comes into
his mind. Are we agreed about that?
What do you mean?
I mean what I may illustrate by the following instance: The knowledge of a lyre
is not the same as the knowledge of a man?
True.
And yet what is the feeling of lovers when they recognize a lyre, or a garment, or
anything else which the beloved has been in the habit of using? Do not they, from
knowing the lyre, form in the mind’s eye an image of the youth to whom the lyre
belongs? And this is recollection: and in the same way anyone who sees Simmias
may remember Cebes; and there are endless other things of the same nature.
Yes, indeed, there are-endless, replied Simmias.
And this sort of thing, he said, is recollection, and is most commonly a process of
recovering that which has been forgotten through time and inattention.
Very true, he said.
Well; and may you not also from seeing the picture of a horse or a lyre remember
a man? and from the picture of Simmias, you may be led to remember Cebes?
True.
Or you may also be led to the recollection of Simmias himself?
True, he said.
And in all these cases, the recollection may be derived from things either like or
unlike?
That is true.
And when the recollection is derived from like things, then there is sure to be
another question, which is, whether the likeness of that which is recollected is in
any way defective or not.
Very true, he said.
And shall we proceed a step further, and affirm that there is such a thing as
equality, not of wood with wood, or of stone with stone, but that, over and above
this, there is equality in the abstract? Shall we affirm this?
Affirm, yes, and swear to it, replied Simmias, with all the confidence in life.
And do we know the nature of this abstract essence?
To be sure, he said.
And whence did we obtain this knowledge? Did we not see equalities of material
things, such as pieces of wood and stones, and gather from them the idea of an
equality which is different from them?-you will admit that? Or look at the matter

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again in this way: Do not the same pieces of wood or stone appear at one time equal,
and at another time unequal?
That is certain.
But are real equals ever unequal? or is the idea of equality ever inequality?
That surely was never yet known, Socrates.
Then these (so-called) equals are not the same with the idea of equality?
I should say, clearly not, Socrates.
And yet from these equals, although differing from the idea of equality, you
conceived and attained that idea?
Very true, he said.
Which might be like, or might be unlike them?
Yes.
But that makes no difference; whenever from seeing one thing you conceived
another, whether like or unlike, there must surely have been an act of recollection?
Very true.
But what would you say of equal portions of wood and stone, or other material
equals? and what is the impression produced by them? Are they equals in the same
sense as absolute equality? or do they fall short of this in a measure?
Yes, he said, in a very great measure, too.
And must we not allow that when I or anyone look at any object, and perceive
that the object aims at being some other thing, but falls short of, and cannot attain
to it-he who makes this observation must have had previous knowledge of that to
which, as he says, the other, although similar, was inferior?
Certainly.
And has not this been our case in the matter of equals and of absolute equality?
Precisely.
Then we must have known absolute equality previously to the time when we first
saw the material equals, and reflected that all these apparent equals aim at this
absolute equality, but fall short of it?
That is true.
And we recognize also that this absolute equality has only been known, and can
only be known, through the medium of sight or touch, or of some other sense. And
this I would affirm of all such conceptions.
Yes, Socrates, as far as the argument is concerned, one of them is the same as
the other.
And from the senses, then, is derived the knowledge that all sensible things aim
at an idea of equality of which they fall short-is not that true?
Yes.
Then before we began to see or hear or perceive in any way, we must have had
a knowledge of absolute equality, or we could not have referred to that the equals
which are derived from the senses-for to that they all aspire, and of that they fall
short?
That, Socrates, is certainly to be inferred from the previous statements.
And did we not see and hear and acquire our other senses as soon as we were
born?
Certainly.
Then we must have acquired the knowledge of the ideal equal at some time
previous to this?
Yes.

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That is to say, before we were born, I suppose?

True.
And if we acquired this knowledge before we were born, and were born having it,
then we also knew before we were born and at the instant of birth not only equal or
the greater or the less, but all other ideas; for we are not speaking only of equality
absolute, but of beauty, goodness, justice, holiness, and all which we stamp with the
name of essence in the dialectical process, when we ask and answer questions. Of
all this we may certainly affirm that we acquired the knowledge before birth?
That is true.
But if, after having acquired, we have not forgotten that which we acquired, then
we must always have been born with knowledge, and shall always continue to know
as long as life lasts-for knowing is the acquiring and retaining knowledge and not
forgetting. Is not forgetting, Simmias, just the losing of knowledge?
Quite true, Socrates.
But if the knowledge which we acquired before birth was lost by us at birth, and
afterwards by the use of the senses we recovered that which we previously knew,
will not that which we call learning be a process of recovering our knowledge, and
may not this be rightly termed recollection by us?
Very true.
For this is clear, that when we perceived something, either by the help of sight
or hearing, or some other sense, there was no difficulty in receiving from this a
conception of some other thing like or unlike which had been forgotten and which
was associated with this; and therefore, as I was saying, one of two alternatives
follows: either we had this knowledge at birth, and continued to know through
life; or, after birth, those who are said to learn only remember, and learning is
recollection only.
Yes, that is quite true, Socrates.
And which alternative, Simmias, do you prefer? Had we the knowledge at our
birth, or did we remember afterwards the things which we knew previously to our
birth?
I cannot decide at the moment.
At any rate you can decide whether he who has knowledge ought or ought not to
be able to give a reason for what he knows.
Certainly, he ought.
But do you think that every man is able to give a reason about these very matters
of which we are speaking?
I wish that they could, Socrates, but I greatly fear that to-morrow at this time
there will be no one able to give a reason worth having.
Then you are not of opinion, Simmias, that all men know these things?
Certainly not.
Then they are in process of recollecting that which they learned before.
Certainly.
But when did our souls acquire this knowledge?-not since we were born as men?
Certainly not.
And therefore previously?
Yes.
Then, Simmias, our souls must have existed before they were in the form of
man-without bodies, and must have had intelligence.

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Unless indeed you suppose, Socrates, that these notions were given us at the
moment of birth; for this is the only time that remains.
Yes, my friend, but when did we lose them? for they are not in us when we are
born-that is admitted. Did we lose them at the moment of receiving them, or at
some other time?
No, Socrates, I perceive that I was unconsciously talking nonsense.
Then may we not say, Simmias, that if, as we are always repeating, there is an
absolute beauty, and goodness, and essence in general, and to this, which is now
discovered to be a previous condition of our being, we refer all our sensations, and
with this compare them-assuming this to have a prior existence, then our souls
must have had a prior existence, but if not, there would be no force in the argument?
There can be no doubt that if these absolute ideas existed before we were born, then
our souls must have existed before we were born, and if not the ideas, then not the
souls.
Yes, Socrates; I am convinced that there is precisely the same necessity for the
existence of the soul before birth, and of the essence of which you are speaking:
and the argument arrives at a result which happily agrees with my own notion.
For there is nothing which to my mind is so evident as that beauty, goodness, and
other notions of which you were just now speaking have a most real and absolute
existence; and I am satisfied with the proof.
Well, but is Cebes equally satisfied? for I must convince him too.
I think, said Simmias, that Cebes is satisfied: although he is the most incredulous
of mortals, yet I believe that he is convinced of the existence of the soul before birth.
But that after death the soul will continue to exist is not yet proven even to my
own satisfaction. I cannot get rid of the feeling of the many to which Cebes was
referring-the feeling that when the man dies the soul may be scattered, and that
this may be the end of her. For admitting that she may be generated and created in
some other place, and may have existed before entering the human body, why after
having entered in and gone out again may she not herself be destroyed and come to
an end?
Very true, Simmias, said Cebes; that our soul existed before we were born was
the first half of the argument, and this appears to have been proven; that the soul
will exist after death as well as before birth is the other half of which the proof is
still wanting, and has to be supplied.
But that proof, Simmias and Cebes, has been already given, said Socrates, if
you put the two arguments together-I mean this and the former one, in which we
admitted that everything living is born of the dead. For if the soul existed before
birth, and in coming to life and being born can be born only from death and dying,
must she not after death continue to exist, since she has to be born again? surely
the proof which you desire has been already furnished. Still I suspect that you
and Simmias would be glad to probe the argument further; like children, you are
haunted with a fear that when the soul leaves the body, the wind may really blow
her away and scatter her; especially if a man should happen to die in stormy weather
and not when the sky is calm.
Cebes answered with a smile: Then, Socrates, you must argue us out of our
fears-and yet, strictly speaking, they are not our fears, but there is a child within
us to whom death is a sort of hobgoblin; him too we must persuade not to be afraid
when he is alone with him in the dark.
Socrates said: Let the voice of the charmer be applied daily until you have

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charmed him away.

And where shall we find a good charmer of our fears, Socrates, when you are
gone?
Hellas, he replied, is a large place, Cebes, and has many good men, and there
are barbarous races not a few: seek for him among them all, far and wide, sparing
neither pains nor money; for there is no better way of using your money. And you
must not forget to seek for him among yourselves too; for he is nowhere more likely
to be found.
The search, replied Cebes, shall certainly be made. And now, if you please, let us
return to the point of the argument at which we digressed.
By all means, replied Socrates; what else should I please?
Very good, he said.
Must we not, said Socrates, ask ourselves some question of this sort?-What is
that which, as we imagine, is liable to be scattered away, and about which we fear?
and what again is that about which we have no fear? And then we may proceed to
inquire whether that which suffers dispersion is or is not of the nature of soul-our
hopes and fears as to our own souls will turn upon that.
That is true, he said.
Now the compound or composite may be supposed to be naturally capable of being
dissolved in like manner as of being compounded; but that which is uncompounded,
and that only, must be, if anything is, indissoluble.
Yes; that is what I should imagine, said Cebes.
And the uncompounded may be assumed to be the same and unchanging, where
the compound is always changing and never the same?
That I also think, he said.
Then now let us return to the previous discussion. Is that idea or essence, which
in the dialectical process we define as essence of true existence-whether essence of
equality, beauty, or anything else: are these essences, I say, liable at times to some
degree of change? or are they each of them always what they are, having the same
simple, self-existent and unchanging forms, and not admitting of variation at all, or
in any way, or at any time?
They must be always the same, Socrates, replied Cebes.
And what would you say of the many beautiful-whether men or horses or gar-
ments or any other things which may be called equal or beautiful-are they all
unchanging and the same always, or quite the reverse? May they not rather be de-
scribed as almost always changing and hardly ever the same either with themselves
or with one another?
The latter, replied Cebes; they are always in a state of change.
And these you can touch and see and perceive with the senses, but the unchanging
things you can only perceive with the mind-they are invisible and are not seen?
That is very true, he said.
Well, then, he added, let us suppose that there are two sorts of existences, one
seen, the other unseen.
Let us suppose them.
The seen is the changing, and the unseen is the unchanging.
That may be also supposed.
And, further, is not one part of us body, and the rest of us soul?
To be sure.
And to which class may we say that the body is more alike and akin?

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Clearly to the seen: no one can doubt that.

And is the soul seen or not seen?
Not by man, Socrates.
And by "seen" and "not seen" is meant by us that which is or is not visible to the
eye of man?
Yes, to the eye of man.
And what do we say of the soul? is that seen or not seen?
Not seen.
Unseen then?
Yes.
Then the soul is more like to the unseen, and the body to the seen?
That is most certain, Socrates.
And were we not saying long ago that the soul when using the body as an
instrument of perception, that is to say, when using the sense of sight or hearing
or some other sense (for the meaning of perceiving through the body is perceiving
through the senses)-were we not saying that the soul too is then dragged by the
body into the region of the changeable, and wanders and is confused; the world
spins round her, and she is like a drunkard when under their influence?
Very true.
But when returning into herself she reflects; then she passes into the realm of
purity, and eternity, and immortality, and unchangeableness, which are her kindred,
and with them she ever lives, when she is by herself and is not let or hindered; then
she ceases from her erring ways, and being in communion with the unchanging is
unchanging. And this state of the soul is called wisdom?
That is well and truly said, Socrates, he replied.
And to which class is the soul more nearly alike and akin, as far as may be
inferred from this argument, as well as from the preceding one?
I think, Socrates, that, in the opinion of everyone who follows the argument, the
soul will be infinitely more like the unchangeable even the most stupid person will
not deny that.
And the body is more like the changing?
Yes.
Yet once more consider the matter in this light: When the soul and the body are
united, then nature orders the soul to rule and govern, and the body to obey and
serve.
Now which of these two functions is akin to the divine? and which to the mortal?
Does not the divine appear to you to be that which naturally orders and rules, and
the mortal that which is subject and servant?
True.
And which does the soul resemble?
The soul resembles the divine and the body the mortal-there can be no doubt of
that, Socrates.
Then reflect, Cebes: is not the conclusion of the whole matter this?-that the soul
is in the very likeness of the divine, and immortal, and intelligible, and uniform, and
indissoluble, and unchangeable; and the body is in the very likeness of the human,
and mortal, and unintelligible, and multiform, and dissoluble, and changeable. Can
this, my dear Cebes, be denied?
No, indeed.
But if this is true, then is not the body liable to speedy dissolution?

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And is not the soul almost or altogether indissoluble?

Certainly.
And do you further observe, that after a man is dead, the body, which is the
visible part of man, and has a visible framework, which is called a corpse, and
which would naturally be dissolved and decomposed and dissipated, is not dissolved
or decomposed at once, but may remain for a good while, if the constitution be
sound at the time of death, and the season of the year favorable? For the body
when shrunk and embalmed, as is the custom in Egypt, may remain almost entire
through infinite ages; and even in decay, still there are some portions, such as the
bones and ligaments, which are practically indestructible. You allow that?
Yes.
And are we to suppose that the soul, which is invisible, in passing to the true
Hades, which like her is invisible, and pure, and noble, and on her way to the good
and wise God, whither, if God will, my soul is also soon to go-that the soul, I repeat,
if this be her nature and origin, is blown away and perishes immediately on quitting
the body as the many say? That can never be, dear Simmias and Cebes. The truth
rather is that the soul which is pure at departing draws after her no bodily taint,
having never voluntarily had connection with the body, which she is ever avoiding,
herself gathered into herself (for such abstraction has been the study of her life).
And what does this mean but that she has been a true disciple of philosophy and
has practised how to die easily? And is not philosophy the practice of death?
Certainly.
That soul, I say, herself invisible, departs to the invisible worldto the divine and
immortal and rational: thither arriving, she lives in bliss and is released from the
error and folly of men, their fears and wild passions and all other human ills, and
forever dwells, as they say of the initiated, in company with the gods. Is not this
true, Cebes?
Yes, said Cebes, beyond a doubt.
But the soul which has been polluted, and is impure at the time of her departure,
and is the companion and servant of the body always, and is in love with and
fascinated by the body and by the desires and pleasures of the body, until she is led
to believe that the truth only exists in a bodily form, which a man may touch and
see and taste and use for the purposes of his lusts-the soul, I mean, accustomed to
hate and fear and avoid the intellectual principle, which to the bodily eye is dark
and invisible, and can be attained only by philosophy-do you suppose that such a
soul as this will depart pure and unalloyed?
That is impossible, he replied.
She is engrossed by the corporeal, which the continual association and constant
care of the body have made natural to her.
Very true.
And this, my friend, may be conceived to be that heavy, weighty, earthy element
of sight by which such a soul is depressed and dragged down again into the visible
world, because she is afraid of the invisible and of the world below-prowling about
tombs and sepulchres, in the neighborhood of which, as they tell us, are seen certain
ghostly apparitions of souls which have not departed pure, but are cloyed with sight
and therefore visible.
That is very likely, Socrates.
Yes, that is very likely, Cebes; and these must be the souls, not of the good, but of
the evil, who are compelled to wander about such places in payment of the penalty

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of their former evil way of life; and they continue to wander until the desire which
haunts them is satisfied and they are imprisoned in another body. And they may be
supposed to be fixed in the same natures which they had in their former life.
What natures do you mean, Socrates?
I mean to say that men who have followed after gluttony, and wantonness, and
drunkenness, and have had no thought of avoiding them, would pass into asses and
animals of that sort. What do you think?
I think that exceedingly probable.
And those who have chosen the portion of injustice, and tyranny, and violence,
will pass into wolves, or into hawks and kites; whither else can we suppose them to
go?
Yes, said Cebes; that is doubtless the place of natures such as theirs. And there
is no difficulty, he said, in assigning to all of them places answering to their several
natures and propensities?
There is not, he said.
Even among them some are happier than others; and the happiest both in
themselves and their place of abode are those who have practised the civil and social
virtues which are called temperance and justice, and are acquired by habit and
attention without philosophy and mind.
Why are they the happiest?
Because they may be expected to pass into some gentle, social nature which is
like their own, such as that of bees or ants, or even back again into the form of man,
and just and moderate men spring from them.
That is not impossible.
But he who is a philosopher or lover of learning, and is entirely pure at departing,
is alone permitted to reach the gods. And this is the reason, Simmias and Cebes,
why the true votaries of philosophy abstain from all fleshly lusts, and endure and
refuse to give themselves up to them-not because they fear poverty or the ruin of
their families, like the lovers of money, and the world in general; nor like the lovers
of power and honor, because they dread the dishonor or disgrace of evil deeds.
No, Socrates, that would not become them, said Cebes.
No, indeed, he replied; and therefore they who have a care of their souls, and
do not merely live in the fashions of the body, say farewell to all this; they will not
walk in the ways of the blind: and when philosophy offers them purification and
release from evil, they feel that they ought not to resist her influence, and to her
they incline, and whither she leads they follow her.
What do you mean, Socrates?
I will tell you, he said. The lovers of knowledge are conscious that their souls,
when philosophy receives them, are simply fastened and glued to their bodies: the
soul is only able to view existence through the bars of a prison, and not in her
own nature; she is wallowing in the mire of all ignorance; and philosophy, seeing
the terrible nature of her confinement, and that the captive through desire is led
to conspire in her own captivity (for the lovers of knowledge are aware that this
was the original state of the soul, and that when she was in this state philosophy
received and gently counseled her, and wanted to release her, pointing out to her
that the eye is full of deceit, and also the ear and other senses, and persuading
her to retire from them in all but the necessary use of them and to be gathered
up and collected into herself, and to trust only to herself and her own intuitions
of absolute existence, and mistrust that which comes to her through others and is

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subject to vicissitude)-philosophy shows her that this is visible and tangible, but
that what she sees in her own nature is intellectual and invisible. And the soul
of the true philosopher thinks that she ought not to resist this deliverance, and
therefore abstains from pleasures and desires and pains and fears, as far as she is
able; reflecting that when a man has great joys or sorrows or fears or desires he
suffers from them, not the sort of evil which might be anticipated-as, for example,
the loss of his health or property, which he has sacrificed to his lusts-but he has
suffered an evil greater far, which is the greatest and worst of all evils, and one of
which he never thinks.
And what is that, Socrates? said Cebes.
Why, this: When the feeling of pleasure or pain in the soul is most intense, all
of us naturally suppose that the object of this intense feeling is then plainest and
truest: but this is not the case.
Very true.
And this is the state in which the soul is most enthralled by the body.
How is that?
Why, because each pleasure and pain is a sort of nail which nails and rivets the
soul to the body, and engrosses her and makes her believe that to be true which
the body affirms to be true; and from agreeing with the body and having the same
delights she is obliged to have the same habits and ways, and is not likely ever to
be pure at her departure to the world below, but is always saturated with the body;
so that she soon sinks into another body and there germinates and grows, and has
therefore no part in the communion of the divine and pure and simple.
That is most true, Socrates, answered Cebes.
And this, Cebes, is the reason why the true lovers of knowledge are temperate
and brave; and not for the reason which the world gives.
Certainly not.
Certainly not! For not in that way does the soul of a philosopher reason; she
will not ask philosophy to release her in order that when released she may deliver
herself up again to the thraldom of pleasures and pains, doing a work only to be
undone again, weaving instead of unweaving her Penelope’s web. But she will make
herself a calm of passion and follow Reason, and dwell in her, beholding the true
and divine (which is not matter of opinion), and thence derive nourishment. Thus
she seeks to live while she lives, and after death she hopes to go to her own kindred
and to be freed from human ills. Never fear, Simmias and Cebes, that a soul which
has been thus nurtured and has had these pursuits, will at her departure from the
body be scattered and blown away by the winds and be nowhere and nothing.
When Socrates had done speaking, for a considerable time there was silence;
he himself and most of us appeared to be meditating on what had been said; only
Cebes and Simmias spoke a few words to one another. And Socrates observing this
asked them what they thought of the argument, and whether there was anything
wanting? For, said he, much is still open to suspicion and attack, if anyone were
disposed to sift the matter thoroughly. If you are talking of something else I would
rather not interrupt you, but if you are still doubtful about the argument do not
hesitate to say exactly what you think, and let us have anything better which you
can suggest; and if I am likely to be of any use, allow me to help you.
Simmias said: I must confess, Socrates, that doubts did arise in our minds, and
each of us was urging and inciting the other to put the question which he wanted to
have answered and which neither of us liked to ask, fearing that our importunity

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might be troublesome under present circumstances.

Socrates smiled and said: O Simmias, how strange that is; I am not very likely
to persuade other men that I do not regard my present situation as a misfortune,
if I am unable to persuade you, and you will keep fancying that I am at all more
troubled now than at any other time. Will you not allow that I have as much of
the spirit of prophecy in me as the swans? For they, when they perceive that they
must die, having sung all their life long, do then sing more than ever, rejoicing in
the thought that they are about to go away to the god whose ministers they are.
But men, because they are themselves afraid of death, slanderously affirm of the
swans that they sing a lament at the last, not considering that no bird sings when
cold, or hungry, or in pain, not even the nightingale, nor the swallow, nor yet the
hoopoe; which are said indeed to tune a lay of sorrow, although I do not believe
this to be true of them any more than of the swans. But because they are sacred
to Apollo and have the gift of prophecy and anticipate the good things of another
world, therefore they sing and rejoice in that day more than they ever did before.
And I, too, believing myself to be the consecrated servant of the same God, and the
fellow servant of the swans, and thinking that I have received from my master gifts
of prophecy which are not inferior to theirs, would not go out of life less merrily
than the swans. Cease to mind then about this, but speak and ask anything which
you like, while the eleven magistrates of Athens allow.
Well, Socrates, said Simmias, then I will tell you my difficulty, and Cebes will
tell you his. For I dare say that you, Socrates, feel, as I do, how very hard or almost
impossible is the attainment of any certainty about questions such as these in the
present life. And yet I should deem him a coward who did not prove what is said
about them to the uttermost, or whose heart failed him before he had examined
them on every side. For he should persevere until he has attained one of two things:
either he should discover or learn the truth about them; or, if this is impossible,
I would have him take the best and most irrefragable of human notions, and let
this be the raft upon which he sails through life-not without risk, as I admit, if he
cannot find some word of God which will more surely and safely carry him. And
now, as you bid me, I will venture to question you, as I should not like to reproach
myself hereafter with not having said at the time what I think. For when I consider
the matter either alone or with Cebes, the argument does certainly appear to me,
Socrates, to be not sufficient.
Socrates answered: I dare say, my friend, that you may be right, but I should like
to know in what respect the argument is not sufficient.
In this respect, replied Simmias: Might not a person use the same argument
about harmony and the lyre-might he not say that harmony is a thing invisible,
incorporeal, fair, divine, abiding in the lyre which is harmonized, but that the lyre
and the strings are matter and material, composite, earthy, and akin to mortality?
And when someone breaks the lyre, or cuts and rends the strings, then he who
takes this view would argue as you do, and on the same analogy, that the harmony
survives and has not perished; for you cannot imagine, as we would say, that the
lyre without the strings, and the broken strings themselves, remain, and yet that
the harmony, which is of heavenly and immortal nature and kindred, has perished-
and perished too before the mortal. The harmony, he would say, certainly exists
somewhere, and the wood and strings will decay before that decays. For I suspect,
Socrates, that the notion of the soul which we are all of us inclined to entertain,
would also be yours, and that you too would conceive the body to be strung up, and

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held together, by the elements of hot and cold, wet and dry, and the like, and that
the soul is the harmony or due proportionate admixture of them. And, if this is true,
the inference clearly is that when the strings of the body are unduly loosened or
overstrained through disorder or other injury, then the soul, though most divine,
like other harmonies of music or of the works of art, of course perishes at once,
although the material remains of the body may last for a considerable time, until
they are either decayed or burnt. Now if anyone maintained that the soul, being
the harmony of the elements of the body, first perishes in that which is called death,
how shall we answer him?
Socrates looked round at us as his manner was, and said, with a smile: Simmias
has reason on his side; and why does not some one of you who is abler than myself
answer him? for there is force in his attack upon me. But perhaps, before we answer
him, we had better also hear what Cebes has to say against the argument-this
will give us time for reflection, and when both of them have spoken, we may either
assent to them if their words appear to be in consonance with the truth, or if not,
we may take up the other side, and argue with them. Please to tell me then, Cebes,
he said, what was the difficulty which troubled you?
Cebes said: I will tell you. My feeling is that the argument is still in the same
position, and open to the same objections which were urged before; for I am ready to
admit that the existence of the soul before entering into the bodily form has been
very ingeniously, and, as I may be allowed to say, quite sufficiently proven; but
the existence of the soul after death is still, in my judgment, unproven. Now my
objection is not the same as that of Simmias; for I am not disposed to deny that the
soul is stronger and more lasting than the body, being of opinion that in all such
respects the soul very far excels the body. Well, then, says the argument to me, why
do you remain unconvinced? When you see that the weaker is still in existence after
the man is dead, will you not admit that the more lasting must also survive during
the same period of time? Now I, like Simmias, must employ a figure; and I shall ask
you to consider whether the figure is to the point. The parallel which I will suppose
is that of an old weaver, who dies, and after his death somebody says: He is not dead,
he must be alive; and he appeals to the coat which he himself wove and wore, and
which is still whole and undecayed. And then he proceeds to ask of someone who is
incredulous, whether a man lasts longer, or the coat which is in use and wear; and
when he is answered that a man lasts far longer, thinks that he has thus certainly
demonstrated the survival of the man, who is the more lasting, because the less
lasting remains. But that, Simmias, as I would beg you to observe, is not the truth;
everyone sees that he who talks thus is talking nonsense. For the truth is that this
weaver, having worn and woven many such coats, though he outlived several of
them, was himself outlived by the last; but this is surely very far from proving that a
man is slighter and weaker than a coat. Now the relation of the body to the soul may
be expressed in a similar figure; for you may say with reason that the soul is lasting,
and the body weak and short-lived in comparison. And every soul may be said to
wear out many bodies, especially in the course of a long life. For if while the man is
alive the body deliquesces and decays, and yet the soul always weaves her garment
anew and repairs the waste, then of course, when the soul perishes, she must have
on her last garment, and this only will survive her; but then again when the soul
is dead the body will at last show its native weakness, and soon pass into decay.
And therefore this is an argument on which I would rather not rely as proving that
the soul exists after death. For suppose that we grant even more than you affirm

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as within the range of possibility, and besides acknowledging that the soul existed
before birth admit also that after death the souls of some are existing still, and will
exist, and will be born and die again and again, and that there is a natural strength
in the soul which will hold out and be born many times-for all this, we may be still
inclined to think that she will weary in the labors of successive births, and may at
last succumb in one of her deaths and utterly perish; and this death and dissolution
of the body which brings destruction to the soul may be unknown to any of us, for
no one of us can have had any experience of it: and if this be true, then I say that
he who is confident in death has but a foolish confidence, unless he is able to prove
that the soul is altogether immortal and imperishable. But if he is not able to prove
this, he who is about to die will always have reason to fear that when the body is
disunited, the soul also may utterly perish.
All of us, as we afterwards remarked to one another, had an unpleasant feeling
at hearing them say this. When we had been so firmly convinced before, now to
have our faith shaken seemed to introduce a confusion and uncertainty, not only
into the previous argument, but into any future one; either we were not good judges,
or there were no real grounds of belief.

Ech. There I feel with you-indeed I do, Phaedo, and when you were speaking, I
was beginning to ask myself the same question: What argument can I ever trust
again? For what could be more convincing than the argument of Socrates, which
has now fallen into discredit? That the soul is a harmony is a doctrine which has
always had a wonderful attraction for me, and, when mentioned, came back to
me at once, as my own original conviction. And now I must begin again and find
another argument which will assure me that when the man is dead the soul dies
not with him. Tell me, I beg, how did Socrates proceed? Did he appear to share the
unpleasant feeling which you mention? or did he receive the interruption calmly
and give a sufficient answer? Tell us, as exactly as you can, what passed.

Phaed. Often, Echecrates, as I have admired Socrates, I never admired him

more than at that moment. That he should be able to answer was nothing, but what
astonished me was, first, the gentle and pleasant and approving manner in which
he regarded the words of the young men, and then his quick sense of the wound
which had been inflicted by the argument, and his ready application of the healing
art. He might be compared to a general rallying his defeated and broken army,
urging them to follow him and return to the field of argument.

Ech. How was that?

Phaed. You shall hear, for I was close to him on his right hand, seated on a sort
of stool, and he on a couch which was a good deal higher. Now he had a way of
playing with my hair, and then he smoothed my head, and pressed the hair upon
my neck, and said: To-morrow, Phaedo, I suppose that these fair locks of yours will
be severed.
Yes, Socrates, I suppose that they will, I replied.
Not so if you will take my advice.
What shall I do with them? I said.
To-day, he replied, and not to-morrow, if this argument dies and cannot be brought
to life again by us, you and I will both shave our locks; and if I were you, and could

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not maintain my ground against Simmias and Cebes, I would myself take an oath,
like the Argives, not to wear hair any more until I had renewed the conflict and
defeated them.
Yes, I said, but Heracles himself is said not to be a match for two.
Summon me then, he said, and I will be your Iolaus until the sun goes down.
I summon you rather, I said, not as Heracles summoning Iolaus, but as Iolaus
might summon Heracles.
That will be all the same, he said. But first let us take care that we avoid a
danger.
And what is that? I said.
The danger of becoming misologists, he replied, which is one of the very worst
things that can happen to us. For as there are misanthropists or haters of men,
there are also misologists or haters of ideas, and both spring from the same cause,
which is ignorance of the world. Misanthropy arises from the too great confidence of
inexperience; you trust a man and think him altogether true and good and faithful,
and then in a little while he turns out to be false and knavish; and then another
and another, and when this has happened several times to a man, especially within
the circle of his most trusted friends, as he deems them, and he has often quarreled
with them, he at last hates all men, and believes that no one has any good in him at
all. I dare say that you must have observed this.
Yes, I said.
And is not this discreditable? The reason is that a man, having to deal with other
men, has no knowledge of them; for if he had knowledge he would have known the
true state of the case, that few are the good and few the evil, and that the great
majority are in the interval between them.
How do you mean? I said.
I mean, he replied, as you might say of the very large and very small, that nothing
is more uncommon than a very large or a very small man; and this applies generally
to all extremes, whether of great and small, or swift and slow, or fair and foul, or
black and white: and whether the instances you select be men or dogs or anything
else, few are the extremes, but many are in the mean between them. Did you never
observe this?
Yes, I said, I have.
And do you not imagine, he said, that if there were a competition of evil, the first
in evil would be found to be very few?
Yes, that is very likely, I said.
Yes, that is very likely, he replied; not that in this respect arguments are like
men-there I was led on by you to say more than I had intended; but the point of
comparison was that when a simple man who has no skill in dialectics believes an
argument to be true which he afterwards imagines to be false, whether really false
or not, and then another and another, he has no longer any faith left, and great
disputers, as you know, come to think, at last that they have grown to be the wisest
of mankind; for they alone perceive the utter unsoundness and instability of all
arguments, or, indeed, of all things, which, like the currents in the Euripus, are
going up and down in never-ceasing ebb and flow.
That is quite true, I said.
Yes, Phaedo, he replied, and very melancholy too, if there be such a thing as truth
or certainty or power of knowing at all, that a man should have lighted upon some
argument or other which at first seemed true and then turned out to be false, and

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instead of blaming himself and his own want of wit, because he is annoyed, should
at last be too glad to transfer the blame from himself to arguments in general; and
forever afterwards should hate and revile them, and lose the truth and knowledge
of existence.
Yes, indeed, I said; that is very melancholy.
Let us, then, in the first place, he said, be careful of admitting into our souls the
notion that there is no truth or health or soundness in any arguments at all; but let
us rather say that there is as yet no health in us, and that we must quit ourselves
like men and do our best to gain health-you and all other men with a view to the
whole of your future life, and I myself with a view to death. For at this moment I
am sensible that I have not the temper of a philosopher; like the vulgar, I am only a
partisan. For the partisan, when he is engaged in a dispute, cares nothing about
the rights of the question, but is anxious only to convince his hearers of his own
assertions. And the difference between him and me at the present moment is only
this-that whereas he seeks to convince his hearers that what he says is true, I am
rather seeking to convince myself; to convince my hearers is a secondary matter
with me. And do but see how much I gain by this. For if what I say is true, then I do
well to be persuaded of the truth, but if there be nothing after death, still, during
the short time that remains, I shall save my friends from lamentations, and my
ignorance will not last, and therefore no harm will be done. This is the state of
mind, Simmias and Cebes, in which I approach the argument. And I would ask you
to be thinking of the truth and not of Socrates: agree with me, if I seem to you to be
speaking the truth; or if not, withstand me might and main, that I may not deceive
you as well as myself in my enthusiasm, and, like the bee, leave my sting in you
before I die.
And now let us proceed, he said. And first of all let me be sure that I have in
my mind what you were saying. Simmias, if I remember rightly, has fears and
misgivings whether the soul, being in the form of harmony, although a fairer and
diviner thing than the body, may not perish first. On the other hand, Cebes appeared
to grant that the soul was more lasting than the body, but he said that no one could
know whether the soul, after having worn out many bodies, might not perish herself
and leave her last body behind her; and that this is death, which is the destruction
not of the body but of the soul, for in the body the work of destruction is ever going
on. Are not these, Simmias and Cebes, the points which we have to consider?
They both agreed to this statement of them.
He proceeded: And did you deny the force of the whole preceding argument, or of
a part only?
Of a part only, they replied.
And what did you think, he said, of that part of the argument in which we said
that knowledge was recollection only, and inferred from this that the soul must have
previously existed somewhere else before she was enclosed in the body? Cebes said
that he had been wonderfully impressed by that part of the argument, and that his
conviction remained unshaken. Simmias agreed, and added that he himself could
hardly imagine the possibility of his ever thinking differently about that.
But, rejoined Socrates, you will have to think differently, my Theban friend, if
you still maintain that harmony is a compound, and that the soul is a harmony
which is made out of strings set in the frame of the body; for you will surely never
allow yourself to say that a harmony is prior to the elements which compose the
harmony.

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Phaedo 29

No, Socrates, that is impossible.

But do you not see that you are saying this when you say that the soul existed
before she took the form and body of man, and was made up of elements which
as yet had no existence? For harmony is not a sort of thing like the soul, as you
suppose; but first the lyre, and the strings, and the sounds exist in a state of discord,
and then harmony is made last of all, and perishes first. And how can such a notion
of the soul as this agree with the other?
Not at all, replied Simmias.
And yet, he said, there surely ought to be harmony when harmony is the theme
of discourse.
There ought, replied Simmias.
But there is no harmony, he said, in the two propositions that knowledge is
recollection, and that the soul is a harmony. Which of them, then, will you retain?
I think, he replied, that I have a much stronger faith, Socrates, in the first of the
two, which has been fully demonstrated to me, than in the latter, which has not
been demonstrated at all, but rests only on probable and plausible grounds; and I
know too well that these arguments from probabilities are impostors, and unless
great caution is observed in the use of them they are apt to be deceptive-in geometry,
and in other things too. But the doctrine of knowledge and recollection has been
proven to me on trustworthy grounds; and the proof was that the soul must have
existed before she came into the body, because to her belongs the essence of which
the very name implies existence. Having, as I am convinced, rightly accepted this
conclusion, and on sufficient grounds, I must, as I suppose, cease to argue or allow
others to argue that the soul is a harmony.
Let me put the matter, Simmias, he said, in another point of view: Do you imagine
that a harmony or any other composition can be in a state other than that of the
elements out of which it is compounded?
Certainly not.
Or do or suffer anything other than they do or suffer?
He agreed.
Then a harmony does not lead the parts or elements which make up the harmony,
but only follows them.
He assented.
For harmony cannot possibly have any motion, or sound, or other quality which
is opposed to the parts.
That would be impossible, he replied.
And does not every harmony depend upon the manner in which the elements are
harmonized?
I do not understand you, he said.
I mean to say that a harmony admits of degrees, and is more of a harmony, and
more completely a harmony, when more completely harmonized, if that be possible;
and less of a harmony, and less completely a harmony, when less harmonized.
True.
But does the soul admit of degrees? or is one soul in the very least degree more
or less, or more or less completely, a soul than another?
Not in the least.
Yet surely one soul is said to have intelligence and virtue, and to be good, and
another soul is said to have folly and vice, and to be an evil soul: and this is said
truly?

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Yes, truly.
But what will those who maintain the soul to be a harmony say of this presence
of virtue and vice in the soul?-Will they say that there is another harmony, and
another discord, and that the virtuous soul is harmonized, and herself being a
harmony has another harmony within her, and that the vicious soul is inharmonical
and has no harmony within her?
I cannot say, replied Simmias; but I suppose that something of that kind would
be asserted by those who take this view.
And the admission is already made that no soul is more a soul than another; and
this is equivalent to admitting that harmony is not more or less harmony, or more
or less completely a harmony?
Quite true.
And that which is not more or less a harmony is not more or less harmonized?
True.
And that which is not more or less harmonized cannot have more or less of
harmony, but only an equal harmony?
Yes, an equal harmony.
Then one soul not being more or less absolutely a soul than another, is not more
or less harmonized?
Exactly.
And therefore has neither more nor less of harmony or of discord?
She has not.
And having neither more nor less of harmony or of discord, one soul has no more
vice or virtue than another, if vice be discord and virtue harmony?
Not at all more.
Or speaking more correctly, Simmias, the soul, if she is a harmony, will never
have any vice; because a harmony, being absolutely a harmony, has no part in the
inharmonical?
No.
And therefore a soul which is absolutely a soul has no vice?
How can she have, consistently with the preceding argument?
Then, according to this, if the souls of all animals are equally and absolutely
souls, they will be equally good?
I agree with you, Socrates, he said.
And can all this be true, think you? he said; and are all these consequences
admissible-which nevertheless seem to follow from the assumption that the soul is
a harmony?
Certainly not, he said.
Once more, he said, what ruling principle is there of human things other than
the soul, and especially the wise soul? Do you know of any?
Indeed, I do not.
And is the soul in agreement with the affections of the body? or is she at variance
with them? For example, when the body is hot and thirsty, does not the soul incline
us against drinking? and when the body is hungry, against eating? And this is only
one instance out of ten thousand of the opposition of the soul to the things of the
body.
Very true.
But we have already acknowledged that the soul, being a harmony, can never
utter a note at variance with the tensions and relaxations and vibrations and other

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affections of the strings out of which she is composed; she can only follow, she cannot
lead them?
Yes, he said, we acknowledged that, certainly.
And yet do we not now discover the soul to be doing the exact opposite-leading
the elements of which she is believed to be composed; almost always opposing and
coercing them in all sorts of ways throughout life, sometimes more violently with
the pains of medicine and gymnastic; then again more gently; threatening and
also reprimanding the desires, passions, fears, as if talking to a thing which is not
herself, as Homer in the "Odyssey" represents Odysseus doing in the words,
"He beat his breast, and thus reproached his heart:
Endure, my heart; far worse hast thou endured!"
Do you think that Homer could have written this under the idea that the soul
is a harmony capable of being led by the affections of the body, and not rather of
a nature which leads and masters them; and herself a far diviner thing than any
harmony?
Yes, Socrates, I quite agree to that.
Then, my friend, we can never be right in saying that the soul is a harmony, for
that would clearly contradict the divine Homer as well as ourselves.
True, he said.
Thus much, said Socrates, of Harmonia, your Theban goddess, Cebes, who has
not been ungracious to us, I think; but what shall I say to the Theban Cadmus, and
how shall I propitiate him?
I think that you will discover a way of propitiating him, said Cebes; I am sure
that you have answered the argument about harmony in a manner that I could
never have expected. For when Simmias mentioned his objection, I quite imagined
that no answer could be given to him, and therefore I was surprised at finding that
his argument could not sustain the first onset of yours; and not impossibly the other,
whom you call Cadmus, may share a similar fate.
Nay, my good friend, said Socrates, let us not boast, lest some evil eye should
put to flight the word which I am about to speak. That, however, may be left in
the hands of those above, while I draw near in Homeric fashion, and try the mettle
of your words. Briefly, the sum of your objection is as follows: You want to have
proven to you that the soul is imperishable and immortal, and you think that the
philosopher who is confident in death has but a vain and foolish confidence, if he
thinks that he will fare better than one who has led another sort of life, in the
world below, unless he can prove this; and you say that the demonstration of the
strength and divinity of the soul, and of her existence prior to our becoming men,
does not necessarily imply her immortality. Granting that the soul is longlived,
and has known and done much in a former state, still she is not on that account
immortal; and her entrance into the human form may be a sort of disease which is
the beginning of dissolution, and may at last, after the toils of life are over, end in
that which is called death. And whether the soul enters into the body once only or
many times, that, as you would say, makes no difference in the fears of individuals.
For any man, who is not devoid of natural feeling, has reason to fear, if he has no
knowledge or proof of the soul’s immortality. That is what I suppose you to say,
Cebes, which I designedly repeat, in order that nothing may escape us, and that you
may, if you wish, add or subtract anything.
But, said Cebes, as far as I can see at present, I have nothing to add or subtract;
you have expressed my meaning.

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Socrates paused awhile, and seemed to be absorbed in reflection. At length he

said: This is a very serious inquiry which you are raising, Cebes, involving the
whole question of generation and corruption, about which I will, if you like, give you
my own experience; and you can apply this, if you think that anything which I say
will avail towards the solution of your difficulty.
I should very much like, said Cebes, to hear what you have to say.
Then I will tell you, said Socrates. When I was young, Cebes, I had a prodigious
desire to know that department of philosophy which is called Natural Science; this
appeared to me to have lofty aims, as being the science which has to do with the
causes of things, and which teaches why a thing is, and is created and destroyed;
and I was always agitating myself with the consideration of such questions as these:
Is the growth of animals the result of some decay which the hot and cold principle
contracts, as some have said? Is the blood the element with which we think, or the
air, or the fire? or perhaps nothing of this sort-but the brain may be the originating
power of the perceptions of hearing and sight and smell, and memory and opinion
may come from them, and science may be based on memory and opinion when no
longer in motion, but at rest. And then I went on to examine the decay of them, and
then to the things of heaven and earth, and at last I concluded that I was wholly
incapable of these inquiries, as I will satisfactorily prove to you. For I was fascinated
by them to such a degree that my eyes grew blind to things that I had seemed to
myself, and also to others, to know quite well; and I forgot what I had before thought
to be self-evident, that the growth of man is the result of eating and drinking; for
when by the digestion of food flesh is added to flesh and bone to bone, and whenever
there is an aggregation of congenial elements, the lesser bulk becomes larger and
the small man greater. Was not that a reasonable notion?
Yes, said Cebes, I think so.
Well; but let me tell you something more. There was a time when I thought that
I understood the meaning of greater and less pretty well; and when I saw a great
man standing by a little one I fancied that one was taller than the other by a head;
or one horse would appear to be greater than another horse: and still more clearly
did I seem to perceive that ten is two more than eight, and that two cubits are more
than one, because two is twice one.
And what is now your notion of such matters? said Cebes.
I should be far enough from imagining, he replied, that I knew the cause of any
of them, indeed I should, for I cannot satisfy myself that when one is added to one,
the one to which the addition is made becomes two, or that the two units added
together make two by reason of the addition. For I cannot understand how, when
separated from the other, each of them was one and not two, and now, when they are
brought together, the mere juxtaposition of them can be the cause of their becoming
two: nor can I understand how the division of one is the way to make two; for
then a different cause would produce the same effect-as in the former instance the
addition and juxtaposition of one to one was the cause of two, in this the separation
and subtraction of one from the other would be the cause. Nor am I any longer
satisfied that I understand the reason why one or anything else either is generated
or destroyed or is at all, but I have in my mind some confused notion of another
method, and can never admit this.
Then I heard someone who had a book of Anaxagoras, as he said, out of which
he read that mind was the disposer and cause of all, and I was quite delighted
at the notion of this, which appeared admirable, and I said to myself: If mind is

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the disposer, mind will dispose all for the best, and put each particular in the best
place; and I argued that if anyone desired to find out the cause of the generation
or destruction or existence of anything, he must find out what state of being or
suffering or doing was best for that thing, and therefore a man had only to consider
the best for himself and others, and then he would also know the worse, for that the
same science comprised both. And I rejoiced to think that I had found in Anaxagoras
a teacher of the causes of existence such as I desired, and I imagined that he would
tell me first whether the earth is flat or round; and then he would further explain
the cause and the necessity of this, and would teach me the nature of the best and
show that this was best; and if he said that the earth was in the centre, he would
explain that this position was the best, and I should be satisfied if this were shown
to me, and not want any other sort of cause. And I thought that I would then go
and ask him about the sun and moon and stars, and that he would explain to me
their comparative swiftness, and their returnings and various states, and how their
several affections, active and passive, were all for the best. For I could not imagine
that when he spoke of mind as the disposer of them, he would give any other account
of their being as they are, except that this was best; and I thought when he had
explained to me in detail the cause of each and the cause of all, he would go on to
explain to me what was best for each and what was best for all. I had hopes which
I would not have sold for much, and I seized the books and read them as fast as I
could in my eagerness to know the better and the worse.
What hopes I had formed, and how grievously was I disappointed! As I proceeded,
I found my philosopher altogether forsaking mind or any other principle of order,
but having recourse to air, and ether, and water, and other eccentricities. I might
compare him to a person who began by maintaining generally that mind is the cause
of the actions of Socrates, but who, when he endeavored to explain the causes of my
several actions in detail, went on to show that I sit here because my body is made up
of bones and muscles; and the bones, as he would say, are hard and have ligaments
which divide them, and the muscles are elastic, and they cover the bones, which
have also a covering or environment of flesh and skin which contains them; and as
the bones are lifted at their joints by the contraction or relaxation of the muscles, I
am able to bend my limbs, and this is why I am sitting here in a curved posture:
that is what he would say, and he would have a similar explanation of my talking to
you, which he would attribute to sound, and air, and hearing, and he would assign
ten thousand other causes of the same sort, forgetting to mention the true cause,
which is that the Athenians have thought fit to condemn me, and accordingly I have
thought it better and more right to remain here and undergo my sentence; for I
am inclined to think that these muscles and bones of mine would have gone off to
Megara or Boeotia-by the dog of Egypt they would, if they had been guided only by
their own idea of what was best, and if I had not chosen as the better and nobler
part, instead of playing truant and running away, to undergo any punishment which
the State inflicts. There is surely a strange confusion of causes and conditions in all
this. It may be said, indeed, that without bones and muscles and the other parts of
the body I cannot execute my purposes. But to say that I do as I do because of them,
and that this is the way in which mind acts, and not from the choice of the best, is
a very careless and idle mode of speaking. I wonder that they cannot distinguish
the cause from the condition, which the many, feeling about in the dark, are always
mistaking and misnaming. And thus one man makes a vortex all round and steadies
the earth by the heaven; another gives the air as a support to the earth, which is a

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sort of broad trough. Any power which in disposing them as they are disposes them
for the best never enters into their minds, nor do they imagine that there is any
superhuman strength in that; they rather expect to find another Atlas of the world
who is stronger and more everlasting and more containing than the good is, and are
clearly of opinion that the obligatory and containing power of the good is as nothing;
and yet this is the principle which I would fain learn if anyone would teach me. But
as I have failed either to discover myself or to learn of anyone else, the nature of the
best, I will exhibit to you, if you like, what I have found to be the second best mode
of inquiring into the cause.
I should very much like to hear that, he replied.
Socrates proceeded: I thought that as I had failed in the contemplation of true
existence, I ought to be careful that I did not lose the eye of my soul; as people
may injure their bodily eye by observing and gazing on the sun during an eclipse,
unless they take the precaution of only looking at the image reflected in the water,
or in some similar medium. That occurred to me, and I was afraid that my soul
might be blinded altogether if I looked at things with my eyes or tried by the help
of the senses to apprehend them. And I thought that I had better have recourse
to ideas, and seek in them the truth of existence. I dare say that the simile is not
perfect-for I am very far from admitting that he who contemplates existence through
the medium of ideas, sees them only "through a glass darkly," any more than he
who sees them in their working and effects. However, this was the method which I
adopted: I first assumed some principle which I judged to be the strongest, and then
I affirmed as true whatever seemed to agree with this, whether relating to the cause
or to anything else; and that which disagreed I regarded as untrue. But I should
like to explain my meaning clearly, as I do not think that you understand me.
No, indeed, replied Cebes, not very well.
There is nothing new, he said, in what I am about to tell you; but only what
I have been always and everywhere repeating in the previous discussion and on
other occasions: I want to show you the nature of that cause which has occupied my
thoughts, and I shall have to go back to those familiar words which are in the mouth
of everyone, and first of all assume that there is an absolute beauty and goodness
and greatness, and the like; grant me this, and I hope to be able to show you the
nature of the cause, and to prove the immortality of the soul.
Cebes said: You may proceed at once with the proof, as I readily grant you this.
Well, he said, then I should like to know whether you agree with me in the
next step; for I cannot help thinking that if there be anything beautiful other than
absolute beauty, that can only be beautiful in as far as it partakes of absolute
beauty-and this I should say of everything. Do you agree in this notion of the cause?
Yes, he said, I agree.
He proceeded: I know nothing and can understand nothing of any other of those
wise causes which are alleged; and if a person says to me that the bloom of color,
or form, or anything else of that sort is a source of beauty, I leave all that, which
is only confusing to me, and simply and singly, and perhaps foolishly, hold and am
assured in my own mind that nothing makes a thing beautiful but the presence and
participation of beauty in whatever way or manner obtained; for as to the manner
I am uncertain, but I stoutly contend that by beauty all beautiful things become
beautiful. That appears to me to be the only safe answer that I can give, either to
myself or to any other, and to that I cling, in the persuasion that I shall never be
overthrown, and that I may safely answer to myself or any other that by beauty

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beautiful things become beautiful. Do you not agree to that?

Yes, I agree.
And that by greatness only great things become great and greater greater, and
by smallness the less becomes less.
True.
Then if a person remarks that A is taller by a head than B, and B less by a head
than A, you would refuse to admit this, and would stoutly contend that what you
mean is only that the greater is greater by, and by reason of, greatness, and the less
is less only by, or by reason of, smallness; and thus you would avoid the danger of
saying that the greater is greater and the less by the measure of the head, which is
the same in both, and would also avoid the monstrous absurdity of supposing that
the greater man is greater by reason of the head, which is small. Would you not be
afraid of that?
Indeed, I should, said Cebes, laughing.
In like manner you would be afraid to say that ten exceeded eight by, and by
reason of, two; but would say by, and by reason of, number; or that two cubits exceed
one cubit not by a half, but by magnitude?-that is what you would say, for there is
the same danger in both cases.
Very true, he said.
Again, would you not be cautious of affirming that the addition of one to one, or
the division of one, is the cause of two? And you would loudly asseverate that you
know of no way in which anything comes into existence except by participation in
its own proper essence, and consequently, as far as you know, the only cause of two
is the participation in duality; that is the way to make two, and the participation
in one is the way to make one. You would say: I will let alone puzzles of division
and addition-wiser heads than mine may answer them; inexperienced as I am, and
ready to start, as the proverb says, at my own shadow, I cannot afford to give up the
sure ground of a principle. And if anyone assails you there, you would not mind him,
or answer him until you had seen whether the consequences which follow agree with
one another or not, and when you are further required to give an explanation of this
principle, you would go on to assume a higher principle, and the best of the higher
ones, until you found a resting-place; but you would not refuse the principle and the
consequences in your reasoning like the Eristics-at least if you wanted to discover
real existence. Not that this confusion signifies to them who never care or think
about the matter at all, for they have the wit to be well pleased with themselves,
however great may be the turmoil of their ideas. But you, if you are a philosopher,
will, I believe, do as I say.
What you say is most true, said Simmias and Cebes, both speaking at once.

Ech. Yes, Phaedo; and I don’t wonder at their assenting. Anyone who has the
least sense will acknowledge the wonderful clear. of Socrates’ reasoning.

Phaed. Certainly, Echecrates; and that was the feeling of the whole company at
the time.

Ech. Yes, and equally of ourselves, who were not of the company, and are now
listening to your recital. But what followed?

Phaedo. After all this was admitted, and they had agreed about the existence of

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ideas and the participation in them of the other things which derive their names
from them, Socrates, if I remember rightly, said:-
This is your way of speaking; and yet when you say that Simmias is greater than
Socrates and less than Phaedo, do you not predicate of Simmias both greatness and
smallness?
Yes, I do.
But still you allow that Simmias does not really exceed Socrates, as the words
may seem to imply, because he is Simmias, but by reason of the size which he has;
just as Simmias does not exceed Socrates because he is Simmias, any more than
because Socrates is Socrates, but because he has smallness when compared with
the greatness of Simmias?
True.
And if Phaedo exceeds him in size, that is not because Phaedo is Phaedo, but
because Phaedo has greatness relatively to Simmias, who is comparatively smaller?
That is true.
And therefore Simmias is said to be great, and is also said to be small, because
he is in a mean between them, exceeding the smallness of the one by his greatness,
and allowing the greatness of the other to exceed his smallness. He added, laughing,
I am speaking like a book, but I believe that what I am now saying is true.
Simmias assented to this.
The reason why I say this is that I want you to agree with me in thinking, not
only that absolute greatness will never be great and also small, but that greatness
in us or in the concrete will never admit the small or admit of being exceeded:
instead of this, one of two things will happen-either the greater will fly or retire
before the opposite, which is the less, or at the advance of the less will cease to
exist; but will not, if allowing or admitting smallness, be changed by that; even as
I, having received and admitted smallness when compared with Simmias, remain
just as I was, and am the same small person. And as the idea of greatness cannot
condescend ever to be or become small, in like manner the smallness in us cannot
be or become great; nor can any other opposite which remains the same ever be or
become its own opposite, but either passes away or perishes in the change.
That, replied Cebes, is quite my notion.
One of the company, though I do not exactly remember which of them, on hearing
this, said: By Heaven, is not this the direct contrary of what was admitted before-
that out of the greater came the less and out of the less the greater, and that
opposites are simply generated from opposites; whereas now this seems to be utterly
denied.
Socrates inclined his head to the speaker and listened. I like your courage, he
said, in reminding us of this. But you do not observe that there is a difference in the
two cases. For then we were speaking of opposites in the concrete, and now of the
essential opposite which, as is affirmed, neither in us nor in nature can ever be at
variance with itself: then, my friend, we were speaking of things in which opposites
are inherent and which are called after them, but now about the opposites which
are inherent in them and which give their name to them; these essential opposites
will never, as we maintain, admit of generation into or out of one another. At the
same time, turning to Cebes, he said: Were you at all disconcerted, Cebes, at our
friend’s objection?
That was not my feeling, said Cebes; and yet I cannot deny that I am apt to be
disconcerted.

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Then we are agreed after all, said Socrates, that the opposite will never in any
case be opposed to itself?
To that we are quite agreed, he replied.
Yet once more let me ask you to consider the question from another point of view,
and see whether you agree with me: There is a thing which you term heat, and
another thing which you term cold?
Certainly.
But are they the same as fire and snow?
Most assuredly not.
Heat is not the same as fire, nor is cold the same as snow?
No.
And yet you will surely admit that when snow, as before said, is under the
influence of heat, they will not remain snow and heat; but at the advance of the
heat the snow will either retire or perish?
Very true, he replied.
And the fire too at the advance of the cold will either retire or perish; and when
the fire is under the influence of the cold, they will not remain, as before, fire and
cold.
That is true, he said.
And in some cases the name of the idea is not confined to the idea; but anything
else which, not being the idea, exists only in the form of the idea, may also lay claim
to it. I will try to make this clearer by an example: The odd number is always called
by the name of odd?
Very true.
But is this the only thing which is called odd? Are there not other things which
have their own name, and yet are called odd, because, although not the same as
oddness, they are never without oddness?-that is what I mean to ask-whether
numbers such as the number three are not of the class of odd. And there are many
other examples: would you not say, for example, that three may be called by its
proper name, and also be called odd, which is not the same with three? and this may
be said not only of three but also of five, and every alternate number-each of them
without being oddness is odd, and in the same way two and four, and the whole
series of alternate numbers, has every number even, without being evenness. Do
you admit that?
Yes, he said, how can I deny that?
Then now mark the point at which I am aiming: not only do essential opposites
exclude one another, but also concrete things, which, although not in themselves
opposed, contain opposites; these, I say, also reject the idea which is opposed to
that which is contained in them, and at the advance of that they either perish or
withdraw. There is the number three for example; will not that endure annihilation
or anything sooner than be converted into an even number, remaining three?
Very true, said Cebes.
And yet, he said, the number two is certainly not opposed to the number three?
It is not.
Then not only do opposite ideas repel the advance of one another, but also there
are other things which repel the approach of opposites.
That is quite true, he said.
Suppose, he said, that we endeavor, if possible, to determine what these are.
By all means.

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Are they not, Cebes, such as compel the things of which they have possession,
not only to take their own form, but also the form of some opposite?
What do you mean?
I mean, as I was just now saying, and have no need to repeat to you, that those
things which are possessed by the number three must not only be three in number,
but must also be odd.
Quite true.
And on this oddness, of which the number three has the impress, the opposite
idea will never intrude?
No.
And this impress was given by the odd principle?
Yes.
And to the odd is opposed the even?
True.
Then the idea of the even number will never arrive at three?
No.
Then three has no part in the even?
None.
Then the triad or number three is uneven?
Very true.
To return then to my distinction of natures which are not opposites, and yet do
not admit opposites: as, in this instance, three, although not opposed to the even,
does not any the more admit of the even, but always brings the opposite into play
on the other side; or as two does not receive the odd, or fire the cold-from these
examples (and there are many more of them) perhaps you may be able to arrive
at the general conclusion that not only opposites will not receive opposites, but
also that nothing which brings the opposite will admit the opposite of that which it
brings in that to which it is brought. And here let me recapitulate-for there is no
harm in repetition. The number five will not admit the nature of the even, any more
than ten, which is the double of five, will admit the nature of the odd-the double,
though not strictly opposed to the odd, rejects the odd altogether. Nor again will
parts in the ratio of 3:2, nor any fraction in which there is a half, nor again in which
there is a third, admit the notion of the whole, although they are not opposed to the
whole. You will agree to that?
Yes, he said, I entirely agree and go along with you in that.
And now, he said, I think that I may begin again; and to the question which I am
about to ask I will beg you to give not the old safe answer, but another, of which I
will offer you an example; and I hope that you will find in what has been just said
another foundation which is as safe. I mean that if anyone asks you "what that is,
the inherence of which makes the body hot," you will reply not heat (this is what
I call the safe and stupid answer), but fire, a far better answer, which we are now
in a condition to give. Or if anyone asks you "why a body is diseased," you will not
say from disease, but from fever; and instead of saying that oddness is the cause of
odd numbers, you will say that the monad is the cause of them: and so of things in
general, as I dare say that you will understand sufficiently without my adducing
any further examples.
Yes, he said, I quite understand you.
Tell me, then, what is that the inherence of which will render the body alive?
The soul, he replied.

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And is this always the case?

Yes, he said, of course.
Then whatever the soul possesses, to that she comes bearing life?
Yes, certainly.
And is there any opposite to life?
There is, he said.
And what is that?
Death.
Then the soul, as has been acknowledged, will never receive the opposite of what
she brings. And now, he said, what did we call that principle which repels the even?
The odd.
And that principle which repels the musical, or the just?
The unmusical, he said, and the unjust.
And what do we call the principle which does not admit of death?
The immortal, he said.
And does the soul admit of death?
No.
Then the soul is immortal?
Yes, he said.
And may we say that this is proven?
Yes, abundantly proven, Socrates, he replied.
And supposing that the odd were imperishable, must not three be imperishable?
Of course.
And if that which is cold were imperishable, when the warm principle came
attacking the snow, must not the snow have retired whole and unmelted-for it could
never have perished, nor could it have remained and admitted the heat?
True, he said.
Again, if the uncooling or warm principle were imperishable, the fire when
assailed by cold would not have perished or have been extinguished, but would have
gone away unaffected?
Certainly, he said.
And the same may be said of the immortal: if the immortal is also imperishable,
the soul when attacked by death cannot perish; for the preceding argument shows
that the soul will not admit of death, or ever be dead, any more than three or the odd
number will admit of the even, or fire or the heat in the fire, of the cold. Yet a person
may say: "But although the odd will not become even at the approach of the even,
why may not the odd perish and the even take the place of the odd?" Now to him
who makes this objection, we cannot answer that the odd principle is imperishable;
for this has not been acknowledged, but if this had been acknowledged, there would
have been no difficulty in contending that at the approach of the even the odd
principle and the number three took up their departure; and the same argument
would have held good of fire and heat and any other thing.
Very true.
And the same may be said of the immortal: if the immortal is also imperishable,
then the soul will be imperishable as well as immortal; but if not, some other proof
of her imperishableness will have to be given.
No other proof is needed, he said; for if the immortal, being eternal, is liable to
perish, then nothing is imperishable.

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Yes, replied Socrates, all men will agree that God, and the essential form of life,
and the immortal in general, will never perish.
Yes, all men, he said-that is true; and what is more, gods, if I am not mistaken,
as well as men.
Seeing then that the immortal is indestructible, must not the soul, if she is
immortal, be also imperishable?
Most certainly.
Then when death attacks a man, the mortal portion of him may be supposed to
die, but the immortal goes out of the way of death and is preserved safe and sound?
True.
Then, Cebes, beyond question the soul is immortal and imperishable, and our
souls will truly exist in another world!
I am convinced, Socrates, said Cebes, and have nothing more to object; but if my
friend Simmias, or anyone else, has any further objection, he had better speak out,
and not keep silence, since I do not know how there can ever be a more fitting time
to which he can defer the discussion, if there is anything which he wants to say or
have said.
But I have nothing more to say, replied Simmias; nor do I see any room for
uncertainty, except that which arises necessarily out of the greatness of the subject
and the feebleness of man, and which I cannot help feeling.
Yes, Simmias, replied Socrates, that is well said: and more than that, first
principles, even if they appear certain, should be carefully considered; and when
they are satisfactorily ascertained, then, with a sort of hesitating confidence in
human reason, you may, I think, follow the course of the argument; and if this is
clear, there will be no need for any further inquiry.
That, he said, is true.
But then, O my friends, he said, if the soul is really immortal, what care should
be taken of her, not only in respect of the portion of time which is called life, but
of eternity! And the danger of neglecting her from this point of view does indeed
appear to be awful. If death had only been the end of all, the wicked would have had
a good bargain in dying, for they would have been happily quit not only of their body,
but of their own evil together with their souls. But now, as the soul plainly appears
to be immortal, there is no release or salvation from evil except the attainment of
the highest virtue and wisdom. For the soul when on her progress to the world below
takes nothing with her but nurture and education; which are indeed said greatly to
benefit or greatly to injure the departed, at the very beginning of its pilgrimage in
the other world.
For after death, as they say, the genius of each individual, to whom he belonged
in life, leads him to a certain place in which the dead are gathered together for
judgment, whence they go into the world below, following the guide who is appointed
to conduct them from this world to the other: and when they have there received
their due and remained their time, another guide brings them back again after
many revolutions of ages. Now this journey to the other world is not, as Aeschylus
says in the "Telephus," a single and straight path-no guide would be wanted for
that, and no one could miss a single path; but there are many partings of the road,
and windings, as I must infer from the rites and sacrifices which are offered to the
gods below in places where three ways meet on earth. The wise and orderly soul is
conscious of her situation and follows in the path; but the soul which desires the
body, and which, as I was relating before, has long been fluttering about the lifeless

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frame and the world of sight, is after many struggles and many sufferings hardly
and with violence carried away by her attendant genius, and when she arrives at
the place where the other souls are gathered, if she be impure and have done impure
deeds, or been concerned in foul murders or other crimes which are the brothers of
these, and the works of brothers in crime-from that soul everyone flees and turns
away; no one will be her companion, no one her guide, but alone she wanders in
extremity of evil until certain times are fulfilled, and when they are fulfilled, she is
borne irresistibly to her own fitting habitation; as every pure and just soul which
has passed through life in the company and under the guidance of the gods has also
her own proper home.
Now the earth has divers wonderful regions, and is indeed in nature and extent
very unlike the notions of geographers, as I believe on the authority of one who shall
be nameless.
What do you mean, Socrates? said Simmias. I have myself heard many descrip-
tions of the earth, but I do not know in what you are putting your faith, and I should
like to know.
Well, Simmias, replied Socrates, the recital of a tale does not, I think, require
the art of Glaucus; and I know not that the art of Glaucus could prove the truth of
my tale, which I myself should never be able to prove, and even if I could, I fear,
Simmias, that my life would come to an end before the argument was completed.
I may describe to you, however, the form and regions of the earth according to my
conception of them.
That, said Simmias, will be enough.
Well, then, he said, my conviction is that the earth is a round body in the center of
the heavens, and therefore has no need of air or any similar force as a support, but
is kept there and hindered from falling or inclining any way by the equability of the
surrounding heaven and by her own equipoise. For that which, being in equipoise,
is in the center of that which is equably diffused, will not incline any way in any
degree, but will always remain in the same state and not deviate. And this is my
first notion.
Which is surely a correct one, said Simmias.
Also I believe that the earth is very vast, and that we who dwell in the region
extending from the river Phasis to the Pillars of Heracles, along the borders of the
sea, are just like ants or frogs about a marsh, and inhabit a small portion only, and
that many others dwell in many like places. For I should say that in all parts of
the earth there are hollows of various forms and sizes, into which the water and
the mist and the air collect; and that the true earth is pure and in the pure heaven,
in which also are the stars-that is the heaven which is commonly spoken of as the
ether, of which this is but the sediment collecting in the hollows of the earth. But
we who live in these hollows are deceived into the notion that we are dwelling above
on the surface of the earth; which is just as if a creature who was at the bottom of
the sea were to fancy that he was on the surface of the water, and that the sea was
the heaven through which he saw the sun and the other stars-he having never come
to the surface by reason of his feebleness and sluggishness, and having never lifted
up his head and seen, nor ever heard from one who had seen, this region which is
so much purer and fairer than his own. Now this is exactly our case: for we are
dwelling in a hollow of the earth, and fancy that we are on the surface; and the air
we call the heaven, and in this we imagine that the stars move. But this is also
owing to our feebleness and sluggishness, which prevent our reaching the surface

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of the air: for if any man could arrive at the exterior limit, or take the wings of a
bird and fly upward, like a fish who puts his head out and sees this world, he would
see a world beyond; and, if the nature of man could sustain the sight, he would
acknowledge that this was the place of the true heaven and the true light and the
true stars. For this earth, and the stones, and the entire region which surrounds us,
are spoilt and corroded, like the things in the sea which are corroded by the brine;
for in the sea too there is hardly any noble or perfect growth, but clefts only, and
sand, and an endless slough of mud: and even the shore is not to be compared to the
fairer sights of this world. And greater far is the superiority of the other. Now of
that upper earth which is under the heaven, I can tell you a charming tale, Simmias,
which is well worth hearing.
And we, Socrates, replied Simmias, shall be charmed to listen.
The tale, my friend, he said, is as follows: In the first place, the earth, when
looked at from above, is like one of those balls which have leather coverings in
twelve pieces, and is of divers colors, of which the colors which painters use on earth
are only a sample. But there the whole earth is made up of them, and they are
brighter far and clearer than ours; there is a purple of wonderful luster, also the
radiance of gold, and the white which is in the earth is whiter than any chalk or
snow. Of these and other colors the earth is made up, and they are more in number
and fairer than the eye of man has ever seen; and the very hollows (of which I was
speaking) filled with air and water are seen like light flashing amid the other colors,
and have a color of their own, which gives a sort of unity to the variety of earth.
And in this fair region everything that grows-trees, and flowers, and fruits-is in
a like degree fairer than any here; and there are hills, and stones in them in a
like degree smoother, and more transparent, and fairer in color than our highly
valued emeralds and sardonyxes and jaspers, and other gems, which are but minute
fragments of them: for there all the stones are like our precious stones, and fairer
still. The reason of this is that they are pure, and not, like our precious stones,
infected or corroded by the corrupt briny elements which coagulate among us, and
which breed foulness and disease both in earth and stones, as well as in animals
and plants. They are the jewels of the upper earth, which also shines with gold
and silver and the like, and they are visible to sight and large and abundant and
found in every region of the earth, and blessed is he who sees them. And upon the
earth are animals and men, some in a middle region, others dwelling about the air
as we dwell about the sea; others in islands which the air flows round, near the
continent: and in a word, the air is used by them as the water and the sea are by us,
and the ether is to them what the air is to us. Moreover, the temperament of their
seasons is such that they have no disease, and live much longer than we do, and
have sight and hearing and smell, and all the other senses, in far greater perfection,
in the same degree that air is purer than water or the ether than air. Also they
have temples and sacred places in which the gods really dwell, and they hear their
voices and receive their answers, and are conscious of them and hold converse with
them, and they see the sun, moon, and stars as they really are, and their other
blessedness is of a piece with this.
Such is the nature of the whole earth, and of the things which are around the
earth; and there are divers regions in the hollows on the face of the globe everywhere,
some of them deeper and also wider than that which we inhabit, others deeper and
with a narrower opening than ours, and some are shallower and wider; all have
numerous perforations, and passages broad and narrow in the interior of the earth,

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connecting them with one another; and there flows into and out of them, as into
basins, a vast tide of water, and huge subterranean streams of perennial rivers, and
springs hot and cold, and a great fire, and great rivers of fire, and streams of liquid
mud, thin or thick (like the rivers of mud in Sicily, and the lava-streams which
follow them), and the regions about which they happen to flow are filled up with
them. And there is a sort of swing in the interior of the earth which moves all this
up and down. Now the swing is in this wise: There is a chasm which is the vastest
of them all, and pierces right through the whole earth; this is that which Homer
describes in the words,
"Far off, where is the inmost depth beneath the earth";
and which he in other places, and many other poets, have called Tartarus. And
the swing is caused by the streams flowing into and out of this chasm, and they
each have the nature of the soil through which they flow. And the reason why the
streams are always flowing in and out is that the watery element has no bed or
bottom, and is surging and swinging up and down, and the surrounding wind and
air do the same; they follow the water up and down, hither and thither, over the
earth-just as in respiring the air is always in process of inhalation and exhalation;
and the wind swinging with the water in and out produces fearful and irresistible
blasts: when the waters retire with a rush into the lower parts of the earth, as they
are called, they flow through the earth into those regions, and fill them up as with
the alternate motion of a pump, and then when they leave those regions and rush
back hither, they again fill the hollows here, and when these are filled, flow through
subterranean channels and find their way to their several places, forming seas, and
lakes, and rivers, and springs. Thence they again enter the earth, some of them
making a long circuit into many lands, others going to few places and those not
distant, and again fall into Tartarus, some at a point a good deal lower than that at
which they rose, and others not much lower, but all in some degree lower than the
point of issue. And some burst forth again on the opposite side, and some on the
same side, and some wind round the earth with one or many folds, like the coils of a
serpent, and descend as far as they can, but always return and fall into the lake.
The rivers on either side can descend only to the center and no further, for to the
rivers on both sides the opposite side is a precipice.
Now these rivers are many, and mighty, and diverse, and there are four principal
ones, of which the greatest and outermost is that called Oceanus, which flows round
the earth in a circle; and in the opposite direction flows Acheron, which passes under
the earth through desert places, into the Acherusian Lake: this is the lake to the
shores of which the souls of the many go when they are dead, and after waiting an
appointed time, which is to some a longer and to some a shorter time, they are sent
back again to be born as animals. The third river rises between the two, and near
the place of rising pours into a vast region of fire, and forms a lake larger than the
Mediterranean Sea, boiling with water and mud; and proceeding muddy and turbid,
and winding about the earth, comes, among other places, to the extremities of the
Acherusian Lake, but mingles not with the waters of the lake, and after making
many coils about the earth plunges into Tartarus at a deeper level. This is that
Pyriphlegethon, as the stream is called, which throws up jets of fire in all sorts of
places. The fourth river goes out on the opposite side, and falls first of all into a
wild and savage region, which is all of a dark-blue color, like lapis lazuli; and this is
that river which is called the Stygian River, and falls into and forms the Lake Styx,
and after falling into the lake and receiving strange powers in the waters, passes

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under the earth, winding round in the opposite direction to Pyriphlegethon, and
meeting in the Acherusian Lake from the opposite side. And the water of this river
too mingles with no other, but flows round in a circle and falls into Tartarus over
against Pyriphlegethon, and the name of this river, as the poet says, is Cocytus.
Such is the name of the other world; and when the dead arrive at the place to
which the genius of each severally conveys them, first of all they have sentence
passed upon them, as they have lived well and piously or not. And those who
appear to have lived neither well nor ill, go to the river Acheron, and mount such
conveyances as they can get, and are carried in them to the lake, and there they
dwell and are purified of their evil deeds, and suffer the penalty of the wrongs
which they have done to others, and are absolved, and receive the rewards of their
good deeds according to their deserts. But those who appear to be incurable by
reason of the greatness of their crimes-who have committed many and terrible deeds
of sacrilege, murders foul and violent, or the like-such are hurled into Tartarus,
which is their suitable destiny, and they never come out. Those again who have
committed crimes, which, although great, are not unpardonable-who in a moment
of anger, for example, have done violence to a father or mother, and have repented
for the remainder of their lives, or who have taken the life of another under like
extenuating circumstances-these are plunged into Tartarus, the pains of which
they are compelled to undergo for a year, but at the end of the year the wave
casts them forth-mere homicides by way of Cocytus, parricides and matricides by
Pyriphlegethon-and they are borne to the Acherusian Lake, and there they lift up
their voices and call upon the victims whom they have slain or wronged, to have
pity on them, and to receive them, and to let them come out of the river into the
lake. And if they prevail, then they come forth and cease from their troubles; but
if not, they are carried back again into Tartarus and from thence into the rivers
unceasingly, until they obtain mercy from those whom they have wronged: for that
is the sentence inflicted upon them by their judges. Those also who are remarkable
for having led holy lives are released from this earthly prison, and go to their
pure home which is above, and dwell in the purer earth; and those who have duly
purified themselves with philosophy live henceforth altogether without the body, in
mansions fairer far than these, which may not be described, and of which the time
would fail me to tell.
Wherefore, Simmias, seeing all these things, what ought not we to do in order to
obtain virtue and wisdom in this life? Fair is the prize, and the hope great.
I do not mean to affirm that the description which I have given of the soul and
her mansions is exactly true-a man of sense ought hardly to say that. But I do
say that, inasmuch as the soul is shown to be immortal, he may venture to think,
not improperly or unworthily, that something of the kind is true. The venture is a
glorious one, and he ought to comfort himself with words like these, which is the
reason why lengthen out the tale. Wherefore, I say, let a man be of good cheer about
his soul, who has cast away the pleasures and ornaments of the body as alien to
him, and rather hurtful in their effects, and has followed after the pleasures of
knowledge in this life; who has adorned the soul in her own proper jewels, which are
temperance, and justice, and courage, and nobility, and truth-in these arrayed she is
ready to go on her journey to the world below, when her time comes. You, Simmias
and Cebes, and all other men, will depart at some time or other. Me already, as the
tragic poet would say, the voice of fate calls. Soon I must drink the poison; and I
think that I had better repair to the bath first, in order that the women may not

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have the trouble of washing my body after I am dead.

When he had done speaking, Crito said: And have you any commands for us,
Socrates-anything to say about your children, or any other matter in which we can
serve you?
Nothing particular, he said: only, as I have always told you, I would have you look
to yourselves; that is a service which you may always be doing to me and mine as
well as to yourselves. And you need not make professions; for if you take no thought
for yourselves, and walk not according to the precepts which I have given you, not
now for the first time, the warmth of your professions will be of no avail.
We will do our best, said Crito. But in what way would you have us bury you?
In any way that you like; only you must get hold of me, and take care that I do not
walk away from you. Then he turned to us, and added with a smile: I cannot make
Crito believe that I am the same Socrates who have been talking and conducting
the argument; he fancies that I am the other Socrates whom he will soon see, a dead
body-and he asks, How shall he bury me? And though I have spoken many words
in the endeavor to show that when I have drunk the poison I shall leave you and
go to the joys of the blessed-these words of mine, with which I comforted you and
myself, have had, I perceive, no effect upon Crito. And therefore I want you to be
surety for me now, as he was surety for me at the trial: but let the promise be of
another sort; for he was my surety to the judges that I would remain, but you must
be my surety to him that I shall not remain, but go away and depart; and then he
will suffer less at my death, and not be grieved when he sees my body being burned
or buried. I would not have him sorrow at my hard lot, or say at the burial, Thus we
lay out Socrates, or, Thus we follow him to the grave or bury him; for false words
are not only evil in themselves, but they infect the soul with evil. Be of good cheer,
then, my dear Crito, and say that you are burying my body only, and do with that
as is usual, and as you think best.
When he had spoken these words, he arose and went into the bath chamber
with Crito, who bade us wait; and we waited, talking and thinking of the subject
of discourse, and also of the greatness of our sorrow; he was like a father of whom
we were being bereaved, and we were about to pass the rest of our lives as orphans.
When he had taken the bath his children were brought to him-(he had two young
sons and an elder one); and the women of his family also came, and he talked to
them and gave them a few directions in the presence of Crito; and he then dismissed
them and returned to us.
Now the hour of sunset was near, for a good deal of time had passed while he
was within. When he came out, he sat down with us again after his bath, but not
much was said. Soon the jailer, who was the servant of the Eleven, entered and
stood by him, saying: To you, Socrates, whom I know to be the noblest and gentlest
and best of all who ever came to this place, I will not impute the angry feelings of
other men, who rage and swear at me when, in obedience to the authorities, I bid
them drink the poison-indeed, I am sure that you will not be angry with me; for
others, as you are aware, and not I, are the guilty cause. And so fare you well, and
try to bear lightly what must needs be; you know my errand. Then bursting into
tears he turned away and went out.
Socrates looked at him and said: I return your good wishes, and will do as you
bid. Then, turning to us, he said, How charming the man is: since I have been in
prison he has always been coming to see me, and at times he would talk to me, and
was as good as could be to me, and now see how generously he sorrows for me. But

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we must do as he says, Crito; let the cup be brought, if the poison is prepared: if not,
let the attendant prepare some.
Yet, said Crito, the sun is still upon the hilltops, and many a one has taken the
draught late, and after the announcement has been made to him, he has eaten and
drunk, and indulged in sensual delights; do not hasten then, there is still time.
Socrates said: Yes, Crito, and they of whom you speak are right in doing thus, for
they think that they will gain by the delay; but I am right in not doing thus, for I do
not think that I should gain anything by drinking the poison a little later; I should
be sparing and saving a life which is already gone: I could only laugh at myself for
this. Please then to do as I say, and not to refuse me.
Crito, when he heard this, made a sign to the servant, and the servant went in,
and remained for some time, and then returned with the jailer carrying a cup of
poison. Socrates said: You, my good friend, who are experienced in these matters,
shall give me directions how I am to proceed. The man answered: You have only to
walk about until your legs are heavy, and then to lie down, and the poison will act.
At the same time he handed the cup to Socrates, who in the easiest and gentlest
manner, without the least fear or change of color or feature, looking at the man
with all his eyes, Echecrates, as his manner was, took the cup and said: What do
you say about making a libation out of this cup to any god? May I, or not? The
man answered: We only prepare, Socrates, just so much as we deem enough. I
understand, he said: yet I may and must pray to the gods to prosper my journey
from this to that other world-may this, then, which is my prayer, be granted to me.
Then holding the cup to his lips, quite readily and cheerfully he drank off the poison.
And hitherto most of us had been able to control our sorrow; but now when we saw
him drinking, and saw too that he had finished the draught, we could no longer
forbear, and in spite of myself my own tears were flowing fast; so that I covered
my face and wept over myself, for certainly I was not weeping over him, but at the
thought of my own calamity in having lost such a companion. Nor was I the first,
for Crito, when he found himself unable to restrain his tears, had got up and moved
away, and I followed; and at that moment. Apollodorus, who had been weeping
all the time, broke out in a loud cry which made cowards of us all. Socrates alone
retained his calmness: What is this strange outcry? he said. I sent away the women
mainly in order that they might not offend in this way, for I have heard that a man
should die in peace. Be quiet, then, and have patience.
When we heard that, we were ashamed, and refrained our tears; and he walked
about until, as he said, his legs began to fail, and then he lay on his back, according
to the directions, and the man who gave him the poison now and then looked at his
feet and legs; and after a while he pressed his foot hard and asked him if he could
feel; and he said, no; and then his leg, and so upwards and upwards, and showed
us that he was cold and stiff. And he felt them himself, and said: When the poison
reaches the heart, that will be the end. He was beginning to grow cold about the
groin, when he uncovered his face, for he had covered himself up, and said (they
were his last words)-he said: Crito, I owe a cock to Asclepius; will you remember to
pay the debt? The debt shall be paid, said Crito; is there anything else? There was
no answer to this question; but in a minute or two a movement was heard, and the
attendants uncovered him; his eyes were set, and Crito closed his eyes and mouth.
Such was the end, Echecrates, of our friend, whom I may truly call the wisest,
and justest, and best of all the men whom I have ever known.

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Phaedo 47

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