Plato (Collins)/Chapter 3
CHAPTER III.
SOCRATES AND HIS FRIENDS.
SYMPOSIUM―PHEDRUS―APOLOGY―CRITO―PHEDO.
"There neither is, nor shall there ever be, any treatise of Plato. The opinions called by the name of Plato are those of Socrates in the days of his youthful vigour and glory."―Plato, Ep. ii. 314 (Grote).
Socrates, in whom, as we have seen, Plato thus merges his own personality, and who is the spokesman in nearly every Dialogue, was the son of a sculptor at Athens, and was born in the year B.C. 468. He left his father's workshop at an early age, and devoted himself to the task of public teaching,―being, as he believed, specially commissioned by the gods to question and cross-examine all he met. Accordingly he might be found, day after day, in the workshops, in the public walks, in the market-place, or in the Palæstra, hearing and asking questions; careless where or when or with whom he talked. His personal ugliness―about which he makes a joke himself in the "Theætetus"―his thick lips, snub nose, and corpulent body, and besides this, his mean dress and bare feet, made him, perhaps, the most remarkable figure in Athens, especially when contrasted with the rich dresses and classic features of the youths who often followed him. Yet under that Silenus mask (as Alcibiades described it) was concealed the image of a god. None who had ever heard him speak could easily forget the steady gaze, the earnest manner, and, above all, the impassioned words which made their hearts burn within them as they listened. Many youths would approach the circle which always formed whenever Socrates talked or argued, from mere curiosity or as a resource to pass away an hour; and at first they would look with indifference or contempt on the mean and poorly-dressed figure in the centre; but gradually their interest was aroused, their attention grow fixed, and then their hearts beat faster, their eyes swam with tears, and their very souls were touched and thrilled by the voice of the charmer. They came again and again to listen; and so by degrees that company of friends was formed, whose devotion and affection to their master is the best testimony to the magic power of his words.
Among these followers might be found men of every shade of character—the reckless and ambitious Critias, the sceptic Pyrrho, the pleasure-secking Aristippus, "the madman" Apollodorus, and Euclid, who came constantly twenty miles from Megara, although a decree at that time existed that any Megarian found in Athens should be put to death. Above all, Alcibiades was a constant companion of Socrates; and men wondered at the friendship between this strangely-assorted pair—literally "Hyperion to a Satyr,"—the ugly barefooted philosopher, and the graceful youth, the idol of the rising generation, whose brilliant sayings were quoted, whose wild escapades were laughed at, whose figure artists loved to model for their statues of Hermes, and whose very lisp became the fashion of the day. Surrounded by flatterers and admirers, Alcibiades found one man who paid him no compliments, who cared nothing for his rank and accomplishments, yet whose words had the effect of exciting all that was noble in his nature. A strong attachment grew up between the two, and they shared the same tent, and messed together in the winter siege of Potidæa. Alcibiades himself tells us, in the Dialogue which follows, how easily Socrates bore the intense cold of those northern regions, and how, "with his bare feet on the ice, and in his ordinary dress, he marched better than any of the other soldiers who had their shoes on." His personal courage was also remarkable. On one occasion he saved Alcibiades' life at the risk of his own; and in the disastrous retreat after the battle of Delium, we are told that, while all around him were hurrying in wild flight, he walked as unmoved "as if he were in the streets of Athens, stalking like a pelican, and rolling his eyes, while he calmly contemplated friends and foes."
Though Socrates thus discharged his duties as a soldier, he only twice, in the course of his long life, took any prominent part in politics. The first occasion was when he opposed the unjust sentence of death passed by the assembly against the generals after the battle of Arginusæ; and again when, at the peril of his own life, he refused to obey the order of the Thirty Tyrants, and arrest an innocent man. The "divine voice," of which he speaks so frequently, and which interfered and checked him at any important crisis of his life, had forbidden him to take part in the affairs of the state. He was, however, devoted to Athens; and except on military service, we are told that he never left the city walls. Two Thessalian princes once tried to tempt him, by lavish offers of money, to settle at their courts; but he replied with noble independence that it did not become him to accept benefits which he could never hope to return, and that his bodily wants were few, for he could buy four measures of meal for an obolus at Athens, and there was excellent spring-water to be got there—for nothing.
One secret of the influence exercised by Socrates lay in his genial humour, and in his entire freedom from conventionality. He was not (he says himself) as other men are. He conversed in the open air with all chance-comers, rich and poor alike, instead of immuring himself in a lecture-room. He would take no pay, while the Sophists round him were realising fortunes. Instead of wasting time in the barren field of science, or wearying his hearers with the subtleties of rhetoric, he discussed the great practical questions of life and morality, and, as Cicero said, "brought down philosophy from heaven to earth." What is Truth? What is Virtue? What is Justice?—or, as he put it himself, "All the good and evil that has befallen a man in his home,"—such were the subjects of his daily conversation. He was the first who openly asserted that
"The proper study of mankind is man;"—
that is, man's nature and happiness, his virtues and his vices, his place in creation, and the end and object of his life.
In the defence which Plato puts into his mouth at his trial, Socrates gives an account of what he conceived to be his own mission. His friend Chærephon had asked the priestess of Delphi "if there was any man on earth wiser than Socrates?" and the oracle had replied that there was none. Socrates then resolved "himself to test the truth of this reply, and accordingly he had cross-examined statesmen, poets, philosophers,—all, in short, who had the reputation of wisdom in their profession,—and he had found that their pretended knowledge was only ignorance, that God alone was wise, that human wisdom was worthless, and that among men he was wisest who, like himself,
"Professed
"To know this only, that he nothing knew."[1]
This was the great point of contrast between Socrates and those professors of universal knowledge, the Sophists. In their presence he always assumed the humble position of a man "intellectually bankrupt," who knows nothing, and who is seeking for information. He addresses some master of rhetoric or science with a modest and deferential air; he will take it as an infinite obligation if the great man will condescend to relieve his doubts by answering a few easy questions on some (apparently) obvious question of morality; and, of course, the Sophist, to save his own reputation, has no alternative but to comply. Then Socrates, like a skilful barrister, leads his unsuspecting victim on through a series of what seem innocent questions, yet all bearing indirectly on the main point of the argument, till at last his opponent is landed in some gross absurdity or contradiction. This "irony" has been well termed "a logical masked battery," and is more or less a feature in every Dialogue of Plato.
The humour, the genial temper, and the quiet self-possession of Socrates, must have made him a welcome guest in many houses; and in the Dialogue called "The Banquet" (Symposium), we have a sketch of the philosopher "at home," joking with his friends, and entering into the humour of the hour; and showing that, though he could abstain, he could also, if the occasion required it, drink as hard and as long as any reveller in Athens. A goodly company are assembled at Agathon's house. There is the host, a handsome young dilettante poet: there is Phædrus, another young aspirant in literature: there is Pausanias the historian, and Aristophanes the comic poet, apparently on the best of terms with the philosopher whom he had ridiculed so unsparingly in the "Clouds:" there is a doctor, Eryximachus, genial and sociable, but "professional" throughout: there is Socrates himself, who has put on sandals for the occasion, and who comes late, having fallen into a trance on the way; and lastly, there is his satellite Aristodemus,—"the little unshod disciple,"—who gives the history of this supper-party some time after to his friend Apollodorus.
When the meal is ended, and the due libations have been poured, and a hymn sung to the gods, Pausanias proposes that instead of drinking and listening to the flute-girl's music—("she may play to herself," says the doctor, considerately, "or to the women inside, if she prefers it")—they shall pass a sober evening, and that each of the guests in turn shall make a speech in praise of Love—hitherto a much-neglected deity. This prudent proposal is readily accepted by the company, many of whom have hardly recovered from the effects of the last night's carouse.
Phædrus accordingly begins, in a high-flown poetic style, and praises Love as being the best and oldest of the gods, and the source of happiness in life and death. It is Love (he says) that inspires such heroism as that of Alcestis, who died to save her husband's life,—unlike that "cowardly harper" Orpheus, who went alive to Hades after his wife, and was justly punished afterwards for his impertinence. Love, again—passing that of women—inspired Achilles, who "foremost fighting fell" to avenge his friend Patroclus, and was carried after death to the islands of the blest.
Pausanias follows in the same vein, but distinguishes between the ignoble and fleeting love of the body and the pure and lasting love of the soul.
Aristophanes should properly have spoken next, "but either he had eaten too much, or from some other cause he had the hiccough." The doctor recommends him to drink some water, or, if that fails, to "tickle his nose and sneeze;" meanwhile he delivers his own speech—from a medical point of view—and shows how Love, like a good and great physician, reconciles conflicting elements, and produces harmony both in the physical world and in mankind.
Then Aristophanes (who has used the doctor's remedy) opens, as he says, a new line of argument, and gives a whimsical account of the origin of the sexes, which reads as if Plato meant it as a parody of his own myths. Once upon a time (he says) man had three sexes and a double nature: besides this, he was perfectly round, and had four hands and four feet,—one head, with two faces looking opposite ways, set on a single neck. When these creatures pleased, they could walk as men do now, but if they wanted to go faster, they would roll over and over with all their four legs in the air, like a tumbler turning somersaults; and their pride and strength were such that they made open war upon the gods. Jupiter resented their insolence, but hardly liked to kill them with thunderbolts, as the gods would then lose their sacrifices. At last he hit upon a plan. "I will cut them in two," he said, "so that they shall walk on two legs instead of four. They will then be only half as insolent, but twice as numerous, and we shall get twice as many sacrifices." This was done, and the two halves are continually going about looking for one another;[2] and if we mortals (says Aristophanes, with a comic air of apprehension) are not obedient to the gods, there is a danger that we shall be split up again, and we shall have to go about in basso-relievo, like those figures with only half a nose which you may see sculptured on our columns.
Agathon, the young tragic poet, then takes up the parable. Love is the best and fairest of the gods, walking in soft places, with a grace that is all his own, and nestling among the flowers of beauty. Again. Love is
"the wonder of the wise, the amazement of the gods; desired by those who have no part in him, and precious to those who have the better part in him; parent of delicacy, luxury, desire, fondness, softness, grace; careful of the good, uncareful of the evil. In every word, work, wish, fear—pilot, helper, defender, saviour; glory of gods and men."—J.
Lastly, Socrates tells them a story, which he has heard from Diotima, "a wise woman." Love is not in reality a god at all, but a spirit which spans the gulf between heaven and earth, carrying to the gods the prayers of men, and to men the commands of the gods. He is the child of Plenty and Poverty. Like his mother, he is always poor and in misery, without house or home to cover him; like his father, "he is a hunter of men, and a bold intriguer, philosopher, enchanter, sorcerer, and sophist," hovering between life and death, plenty and want, knowledge and ignorance. Love is something more than the desire of beauty;—it is the instinct of immortality in a mortal creature. Hence parents wish for children, who shall come after them, and take their place and preserve their names; and the poet and the warrior are inspired by the hope of a fame which shall live for ever. And Diotima (continues Socrates) unfolded to me greater mysteries than these. He who has the instinct of true love, and can discern the relations of true beauty in every form, will go on from strength to strength until at last the vision is revealed to him of a single science, and he "will suddenly perceive a nature of wondrous beauty—in the likeness of no human face or form, but absolute, simple, separate, and everlasting—not clogged with the pollutions of mortality, and all the colours and vanities of human life."
The murmur of applause with which this speech is greeted has hardly died away, when a loud knocking is heard at the outer gate, and the voice of Alcibiades shouting for Agathon. Presently he staggers in, at the head of a troop of revellers, flushed with wine, and crowned with a wreath of ivy-leaves and violets. Thought he is drunk already (as he tells the company), he orders one of the slaves to fill a huge wine-cooler "holding more than two quarts," which he drains, and then has it filled again for Socrates, who also empties it. "Why are they so silent and sober?" Alcibiades asks; and Agathon explains to him that they have all been making speeches in praise of Love, and that it will be his turn to speak next.
Alcibiades readily assents; but instead of taking Love as his topic, he gives an account of his intercourse with Socrates. His face (he says) is like those masks of Silenus, which conceal the image of a god: he is as ugly as the satyr Marsyas; but, like Marsyas, he charms the souls of all who hear him with the music of his words. "I myself am conscious" (Alcibiades continues) "that if I did not shut my ears against him, and fly from the voice of the charmer, he would enchain me until I grew old sitting at his feet. For he makes me confess that I ought not to live as I do, neglecting the needs of my own soul, and occupying myself with the affairs of the Athenians; therefore I stop my ears, and tear myself away from him. He is the only person who ever made me feel ashamed of myself—a feeling which you might think was not in my nature, and there is no one else who has that effect on me. . . . And oftentimes I wish he were dead; and yet I know that I should be much more sorry than glad, if he were to die."
Then he goes on to tell some anecdotes of the temperance of Socrates, his endurance of fatigue, and his personal courage; and he assures them, in conclusion, that they will never find any other man who in the least resembles this wonderful being.
Again the doors are violently opened, and a fresh band of revellers enter. All is now confusion and uproar. Phædrus, the physician, and some of the more sober spirits, wisely take their departure; while the few who remain settle down to make a night of it. Aristodemus (who tells the story) falls asleep himself, and is only awakened by the cocks crowing at daybreak. All the last night's party have gone, or are asleep on their couches in the room, except Agathon, Aristophanes, and Socrates. These three are still passing a large wine-cup from one to the other; and Socrates is giving the two dramatists a lecture on their own art, and proving to his own satisfaction that the genius of Tragedy and Comedy is the same. His hearers are much too sleepy to argue with or contradict him; and at last the wine takes effect on Aristophanes, who drops under the table, where Agathon soon follows. Socrates puts them to sleep, and then goes tranquilly on his way—takes his bath at the Lyceum, and passes the day as usual.
The following Dialogue, though its main purpose is an attack upon the popular passion for Rhetoric, is perhaps more interesting as a social picture:—
PHÆDRUS.
It is a hot summer afternoon, and Socrates meets young Phædrus (who was one of the guests at Agathon's banquet) walking out for air and exercise beyond the city walls, for he has been sitting since dawn listening to the famous rhetorician Lysias. Socrates banters him on his admiration for Lysias, and at last extorts from him the confession that he has the actual manuscript of the essay which he had heard read hidden under his cloak; and, after some assumed reluctance, Phædrus consents that they shall walk on to some quiet spot where they can read it together. So they turn aside from the highroad, and follow the stream of the Ilissus—cooling their feet in the water as they walk—until they reach a charming resting-place, shaded by a plane-tree, where the air is laden with the scents and sounds of summer, and the agnus castus, with its purple and white blossoms, is in full bloom; while above them the cicalas are chirruping, and at their feet is the soft grass and the cool water, with images of the Nymphs who guard the spot.
"My dear Phædrus," says Socrates, "you are an admirable guide."
"You, Socrates, are such a stay-at-home, that you know nothing outside the city walls, and never take a country walk."
"Very true," says Socrates; "trees and fields tell me nothing: men are my teachers;[3] but only tempt me with the chance of a discussion, and you may lead me all round Attica. Read on." And Phædrus accordingly reads the formal and rhetorical essay to which he had been listening in the morning. It is on a somewhat wasted theme—the advantages of a sober friendship, which lasts a lifetime, over the jealousies and torments caused by a spasmodic and fleeting love.
Socrates, with an irony which even Phædrus sees through, professes to be charmed with the balanced phrases and the harmonious cadence of the essay which has just been read; but he hints that, if he is allowed to use a few commonplaces, he too might add something to what Lysias has said; and then, inspired (as he says) by the genius loci, he delivers himself of a speech, denouncing, in a mock heroic style, the selfish infatuation and the wolf-like passion of the lover. But he almost immediately pretends to be alarmed at his own words; for the divine monitor within tells him that he has insulted the majesty of Cupid, and forbids him to recross the brook until he has recanted his blasphemy. And so he does.
He had previously said that the lover was mad; but this madness is, he explains, really akin to the inspiration of the prophet and Pythian priestess, or the frenzy of the poet, and is, in fact, the greatest blessing which heaven has given to men. And then he weaves his ideas of the origin of Love into a famous myth, which will be found elsewhere.[4]
"I can fancy," says Socrates, laughingly, "that our friends the cicalas overhead are listening to our fine talk, and will carry a good report of us to their mistresses the Muses. For you must know that these little creatures were once human beings, long before the Muses were heard of; but, when the Muses came, they forgot to eat or drink in their exceeding love of song, and so died of hunger; but now they sing on for ever, and hunger and thirst no more. Let us talk, then, instead of idling all the afternoon, or going to sleep like a couple of slaves or sheep at a fountain-side."
Then follows a severe criticism on the Rhetoric of the day. Truth and accurate definition, says Socrates, are the two first requirements of good speaking; but neither of these are necessarily found in an essay like that of Lysias: and rhetoric, though it undoubtedly influences the rising generation, has done little in the way of perfecting oratory, which depends rather on the natural genius of the speaker than on any rules of art;—-indeed, Pericles himself learnt more from Anaxagoras than from the Rhetoricians.
Writing, continues Socrates, is far inferior to speech. It is a spurious form of knowledge; and Thamuz, the old king of Egypt, was right in denouncing letters as likely to spoil men's memories, and produce an unreal and evanescent learning. Letters, like paintings, "preserve a solemn silence, and have not a word to say for themselves;" and, like hothouse plants, they come quickly to their bloom, and as quickly fade away. "Nobler far," he says, "is the serious pursuit of the dialectician, who finds a congenial soil, and there with knowledge engrafts and sows words which are able to help themselves and him who planted them, and are not unfruitful, but have in them seeds which may bear fruit in other natures nurtured in other ways—making the seed everlasting, and the possessors happy to the utmost extent of human happiness."[5]
But severe as he is on ordinary Rhetoricians, he makes an exception in favour of Isocrates. Some divine instinct tells him that the temper of this young orator is cast in a finer mould than that of Lysias and his coterie; and that some day, when he grows older, his genius will surpass all the speakers of his day.
The heat of the day is now past, and the two friends prepare to depart; but first Socrates offers a solemn prayer to the deities who guard this charming spot where they have been resting all the afternoon.
"O beloved Pan, and all ye gods whose dwelling is in this place, grant me to be beautiful in soul, and all that I possess of outward things to be at peace with them within. Teach me to think wisdom the only riches. And give me so much wealth, and so much only, as a good and holy man could manage or enjoy. Phædrus, want we anything more? For my prayer is finished."
Phæd. "Pray that I may be even as yourself; for the blessings of friends are common."[6]
It was hardly possible that Socrates should be popular—puzzling and refuting all he met. "The world cannot make me out" (he says to Theætetus), "therefore they only say of me that I am an extremely strange being, who drive men to their wits' end." His passion for conversation in itself would annoy many; and they probably regarded him as a garrulous and impertinent pedant, whom it was wise to avoid. "I hate this beggar who is eternally talking" (says Eupolis, the comedy-writer), "and who has debated every subject upon earth, except where to get his dinner." And often this vague feeling of dislike would grow into a strong personal hatred. For no man likes to be defeated on his own ground, or to be forced to confess himself ignorant of his favourite subject or theory, still less to be stultified and made ridiculous before a crowd of bystanders. There were numbers who had suffered this humiliation from the unsparing "irony" of Socrates, and their collective enmity grew daily more formidable. Again, few who had seen the "Clouds" of Aristophanes acted some twenty years previously, had forgotten Socrates, as he appeared on the stage,—dangling in a basket between heaven and earth,—the master of "the thinking-shop," who was ready to make, for a consideration," the worse appear the better reason. And some probability had been given to this picture by the recent career of two of his friends—probably at that time the most detested names in Athens—Alcibiades, the selfish renegade, and Critias, the worst of the Thirty Tyrants. But after all, the great offence of Socrates (as Mr Grote points out[7]) was one which no society, ancient or modern, ever forgives—his disdain of conventionality, and his disregard of the sovereign power of Custom. As we shall see in the 'Dialogues of Search,' he questions. and criticises, and often destroys, the orthodox commonplaces of morality, handed down from father to son, and consecrated in the eyes of the Athenians by tradition, and by those mighty household goddesses, "Use and Wont"—
"Grey nurses, loving nothing new."
In short, Socrates is a "dissenter," who will maintain his right of private judgment, and will speak what his conscience tells him to be right—though it be his own opinion against the world. Hence there grew up a widespread antipathy against this man who continually set at defiance the creed sanctioned by custom and society. This at length found its vent in the tablet of indictment, which was hung up one morning in the portico where such notices were displayed—"Socrates is guilty of crime; first, for not worshipping the gods, whom the city worships, but introducing new divinities of his own; secondly, for corrupting the youth. The penalty due is Death."
His three accusers were Anytus, a wealthy tradesman; Meletus, an obscure poet; and Lycon, a rhetorician. Socrates himself seems to have been little moved by the danger of his position, and to have hardly wished for an acquittal. He felt that he had done his work, and that "it was no wonder that the gods should deem it better for him to die now than to live longer."[8] Certainly the tone of his Defence, as we have it from Plato, is more like a defiance than an apology; and the speaker seems, as Cicero said, not so much a suppliant or an accused person, as the lord and master of his judges.[9]
He begins by disclaiming any resemblance to that Socrates whom they had seen on the stage—the stargazer and arch-Sophist—for he knows nothing of science, and had never taken a fee for teaching. His life has been passed in trying to find a wiser man than himself, and in exposing self-conceit and pretentious ignorance. To this mission he has devoted himself, in spite of poverty and ill-repute.
Next he turns upon Meletus, his accuser, and cross-examines him in open court. "How can you," he asks, "call me the corrupter of the youth, when their fathers and brothers would bear witness that it is not so? How can you call me the worshipper of strange gods, when the heresies of Anaxagoras are declaimed on the stage, and sold in our streets?"
Then he turns to the judges again. As for death,—is it likely that one who has never shunned danger on the battle-field—who dared to record his solitary vote at the trial of the generals, in defence of the innocent and in defiance of the popular clamour—who had braved the anger of the Thirty Tyrants,—is it likely that he would desert the post of duty now?
"O Athenians!" he says solemnly, "I both love and honour you; but as long as I live and have the power, I shall never cease to seek the truth, and exhort you to follow it. For I seem to have been sent by God to rouse you from your lethargy, as you may see a gadfly stinging a strong and sluggish horse. Perhaps you will be angry at being thus awakened from your sleep. Shake me off, then, and take your rest, and sleep on—for ever. I shall not try (as others have done) to move your pity by tears and prayers, or by the sight of my weeping children—for Socrates is not as other men are; and if," he concludes, "O men of Athens, by force of persuasion or entreaty I could overpower your oaths, then I should indeed be teaching you to believe that there are no gods, and convict myself, in my own defence, of not believing in them. But that is not the case, for I do believe that there are gods, and in a far higher sense than that in which any of my accusers believe in them. And to you and to God I commit my cause, to be determined by you as is best, both for you and for me"—J.
It was not likely that any jury would be convinced. by such a speech as this—marked throughout by a "contempt of court" unparalleled in Athenian history; and accordingly Socrates was found guilty on both counts of the indictment—though by a majority of only five votes out of some 550. It now remained for himself to propose (as was the custom in such trials at Athens) some counter-penalty in place of death.
But now that he is a condemned criminal, his tone becomes even more lofty than before. Of right, he says, they should have honoured him as a public benefactor, and have maintained him, like an Olympic victor, at the expense of the nation. For his own part, he would not even trouble himself to propose an alternative penalty; but as his friends wish it, and will raise the sum (for he is too poor himself), then a fine of thirty minæ is what he will offer as the price of life.
Such a sum (£120) was plainly an utterly inadequate fine from an Athenian point of view, considering the gravity of the crimes of which he was accused, and that the utmost penalty of the law was the alternative. The question is again put to the vote, and Socrates is condemned to death—the majority this time being far larger than before.
Then he makes his farewell address to his judges. They have condemned him because he would not condescend to tears or entreaties; and perhaps if he had done so he might have escaped. But on such terms he prefers death to life, and indeed it is good for him to die; for death is either annihilation, where sense and feeling are not, or it is a passage of the soul from this world to another. In either case, he will be at rest. He will sleep for ever without a dream; or he will find in Hades better men, and a juster judgment, and truer judges, than he has found on earth; and there he will converse with Homer and Orpheus, and the great men of old; questioning the heroic spirits whom he meets there, as has been his wont to question living men, and finding out who are wise and who are foolish below the earth.
"What infinite delight," he concludes, "there would be in conversing with them and asking them questions! For in that world they do not put a man to death for this,—certainly not. For besides being happier in that world than this, they will be immortal, if what is said is true.
"Wherefore, O ye judges, be of good cheer about death, and know this of a truth—that no evil can happen to a good man, either in life or after death. He and his are not neglected by the gods; nor has my own approaching end happened by mere chance. But I see clearly that to die and be released was better for me; and therefore the oracle gave no sign. For which reason also I am not angry with my accusers or condemners; they have done me no harm, though neither of them meant to do me any good; and for this I may gently blame them. . . .
"The hour of departure has arrived, and we go our ways—I to die, and you to live. Which is better, God only knows."—J.
So ends this famous defence which Plato has put into his master's mouth; and whether the substance of it was actually delivered or not, assuredly "few persons will be found to wish that Socrates should have defended himself otherwise." The account of his subsequent imprisonment and death is given us in the two following Dialogues.
CRITO.
Thirty days elapsed before the sentence passed on Socrates could be carried into effect. Every year the Athenians sent a vessel on a pilgrimage to Delos, in memory of the preservation of their city in the days of Theseus; and from the moment that the priest of Apollo crowned the vessel before it left the harbour, to the hour of its return, there intervened a holy season, during which the city might be polluted by no executions. Now it happened that the vessel sailed on the day that Socrates was condemned, and his execution was accordingly deferred for a month.
His friends daily assembled in his prison, and the long hours were passed in conversation on the usual subjects. One morning Crito comes earlier than usual—when it is hardly light—and finds Socrates calmly sleeping. "Why have you come at this unusual time?" asks Socrates on waking. "I bring sad news," is the reply; "the sacred vessel has been seen off Cape Sunium on its way home, and will reach Athens by to-morrow." But Socrates is prepared for this. He has seen in a vision of the night the likeness of a woman, fair and comely, clothed in white raiment, who called to him and said—"O Socrates, the third day hence to Pthia thou shalt go." He is inclined to believe that the dream will prove true, and that on the third day he will be dead.
Then Crito earnestly implores him to use the little time that is left in making his escape. Neither friends nor money will be wanting: the jailer can be bribed, and the mouths of the Informers stopped with gold. He will find a home ready for him in Thessaly, where he will be loved and honoured. "It would be sheer folly," Crito continues, "to play into the hands of his enemies, and to leave his children outcasts on the world. If the sentence of death is carried out, it will be an absurd and miserable end of a trial which ought to have been brought to another issue."
But Socrates has only one answer to these arguments, which might have persuaded any but himself. Would it be right or lawful for him to escape now? Shall he who for half a century has been preaching obedience to the law, now, in the hour of trial, stultify the precepts of a lifetime! For all those years he has been enjoying the privileges of citizenship and the blessings of a free state, and shall he now be tempted by the fear of death to break his tacit covenant with the laws, and turn his back upon his city "like a miserable slave"?
He can fancy the spirit of the laws themselves upbraiding him:—
"Listen, then, Socrates, to us who have brought you up. Think not of life and children first, and of justice afterwards, but of justice first, that you may be justified before the princes of the world below. For neither will you nor any that belong to you be happier or holier or juster in this life, or happier in another, if you do as Crito bids. Now, you depart in innocence, a sufferer and not a doer of evil; a victim not of laws but of men. But if you go forth returning evil for evil and injury for injury, breaking the covenants and agreements which you have made with us, and wronging those whom you ought least to wrong—that is to say, yourself, your friends, your country, and us—we shall be angry with you while you live, and our brethren, the laws in the world below, will receive you as an enemy, for they will know that you have done your best to destroy us. Listen, then, to us, and not to Crito."
This is the voice which I seem to hear murmuring in my ears, like the sound of the flute in the ears of the mystic; that voice, I say, is humming in my ears, and prevents me from hearing any other. And I know that anything more which you may say will be vain. Yet speak, if you have anything to say.
Cr. I have nothing to say, Socrates.
Soc. Then let me follow the intimations of the will of God.—J.
PHÆDO.
Two days after this, his friends assemble at the prison-doors for the last time, somewhat earlier than usual. There is a short delay, for the sheriffs have come to take the chains off the prisoner preparatory to his death.
The jailer soon admits them, and "on entering" (says Phæado, who had been present himself) "we found Socrates just released from chains, and Xanthippe sitting by him holding his child in her arms. When she saw us, she uttered a cry and said, as women will, 'O Socrates, this is the last time that either you will converse with your friends, or they with you!' Socrates turned to Crito and said, 'Crito, let some one take her home.' Some of Crito's people accordingly led her away, crying out and beating herself."—J.
Socrates then proceeds to talk in his usual easy manner. He has several times been told in dreams "to make music;" and he has accordingly been turning some fables of Æsop into verse. "Tell Evenus this," he says, "and bid him be of good cheer; say 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 I must." Then he considers the question—"Why, in a case where death is better than life, a man should not hasten his own end?" He finds the answer to be, Because man is a prisoner, and has no right to release himself, being, in fact, a sort of possession of the gods, who will summon him at their pleasure.[10]
"Then," says Cebes, one of the party, "the wise man will sorrow and the fool rejoice at leaving his masters the gods, and passing out of life."
"Not so," is the reply; "for I am persuaded that I am going to other gods, who are wise and good, and also (I trust) to men departed, who are better than those I leave behind; therefore I do not grieve, as otherwise I might, for I have good hope that there is yet something awaiting the dead, and, as has been said of old, some far better lot for the good than for the wicked."
He then explains the grounds on which he builds this hope of immortality. Death, he says, is the happy release of the soul from the body. In this life our highest and purest thoughts are distracted by cares and lusts, and diseases inherent in the flesh. He is wisest who keeps himself pure till the hour when the Deity Himself is pleased to release him. "Then shall the foolishness of the flesh be purged away, and we shall be pure, and hold converse with other pure souls, and recognise the pure light everywhere, which is none other than the light of truth." Hence the wise man leaves with joy a world where his higher and ethereal sense is trammelled by evil and impurity; and his whole life is but a preparation for death, or rather an initiation into the mysteries of the unseen world. Many, as they say, join the procession in such mysteries; but few are really chosen for initiation.
No fear that our souls will vanish like smoke, or that the dead sleep on for ever, like Endymion. Our souls are born again; and as life passes into death, so, in the circle of nature, the dead must pass into life; for if this were not so, all things must at last be swallowed up in death.
Again, we have in our minds latent powers of thought—ideas of beauty and equality—which are not given us at our birth, and which we cannot have learnt from experience. Such knowledge is but the soul's recollection of a previous state of existence.
"Blank misgivings of a creature
Moving about in worlds not realised."[11]
It is only the mortal part of us (Socrates continues) that dies when earth returns to earth. The pure soul, herself invisible, departs to the invisible world—to the divine, the immortal, and the rational; where she dwells in bliss, in company with the gods, released from the errors and follies of men, their fears, their unruly passions, and all other evils of humanity. But the impure soul fears to go down to Hades, and haunts the earth for a time like a restless ghost.[12]
Then, by a further train of reasoning, Socrates concludes that the soul is beyond all doubt immortal and imperishable. This being so, a graver question follows—"What manner of persons ought we ourselves to be?" "If death had been the end of all things, then the wicked would gain by dying; for they would have been happily rid not of their bodies only, but of their own wickedness, together with their souls. But now, as the soul plainly appears to be immortal, no release or salvation from evil can be found except in the attainment of the highest virtue and wisdom. For the soul, on her journey to the world below, carries nothing with her but her nurture and education." After death comes the judgment; the guardian angel of each soul conducts her through the road with many windings that leads to the place where all are tried. After this the impure soul wanders without a guide in helpless misery, until a certain period is accomplished, and then she is borne away to her own place. But the pure soul, "arrayed in her proper jewels—temperance, and justice, and courage, and nobility, and truth"—dwells for ever in the glorious mansions reserved for the elect.
Thus Socrates ends his noble profession of faith in a future life—with him half instinct, half conviction, His "Non omnis moriur" has a triumphant ring about it; and, like the swans to whom he compares himself, "who sing more joyously on the day of their death than they ever did before," he rejoices in the thought of his speedy release from life, and looks confidently beyond the grave.
The evening is fast drawing on, and the shadows are lengthening on the Attic hills, when Crito asks him if he has any last directions to give about his children or about his burial. "Bury me in any way you like," says Socrates, with a touch of his old humour; "but be sure that you get hold of me, and that I don't run away from you." Then he turns to the others and says 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 he shall bury me?' You must all be my sureties to Crito, that I shall go away, and then he will sorrow less at my death, and not be grieved when he sees my body burned or buried."
Then he takes his bath, and bids farewell to his wife and children; and by this time the sun is low in the heavens, and the jailer comes in to tell him that his hour is come—weeping himself as he utters the words.
Soon the poison is brought. Socrates takes the cup, and
"in the gentlest and easiest manner, without the least fear or change of colour 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 the 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 in 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 into 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, 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 feel cold about the groin, when he uncovered his face, for he had covered himself up, and said (they were his last words), '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."—J.
So ends the "Phædo;" and as we close the volume, we feel as though we too had lost a friend, so simply and yet so touchingly has every detail of that last scene in the prison been painted for us by a master-hand. Even across the lapse of centuries the picture rises before us distinct and lifelike, as it was to the mind of the writer who described it,—the passionate grief of Apollodorus, the despair of Crito, the silent tears of Phædo—even the jailer weeping, and turning away his face and the composure meanwhile of the central figure of the group, talking cheerfully, and playing with Phædo's hair, who is sitting next him. We can well understand the mingled feelings of the spectators of the scene. "I could hardly believe" (says Phædo, telling the story to Echecrates) "that I was present at the death of a friend, and therefore I did not pity him; 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. 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."
Cicero (who was by no means tender-hearted) declared that he could never read the "Phædo" without tears; and we all know the story of the fair pupil of Ascham, who, while the horns were sounding and dogs in full cry, sat in the lonely oriel with eyes riveted to that immortal page which tells how meekly and bravely the first martyr of intellectual liberty took the cup from his weeping jailer."[13]
- ↑ Milton, Par. Reg., iv. 294.
- ↑ "He is the half part of a blessed man,
Left to be finishèd by such a she;
And she a fair divided excellence
Whose fulness of perfection lies in him."
—Shakspeare, "King John." - ↑ Socrates would have agreed on this point with Dr Johnson. "Sir, when you have seen one green field, you have seen all green fields. Sir, I like to look upon men.—Let us walk down Cheapside."
- ↑ See p. 156.
- ↑ Jowett's Plato, i. 614.
- ↑ Sewell's Dialogues of Plato, 199.
- ↑ Plato, i. 250.
- ↑ Xen. Mem., IV. viii. 4.
- ↑ Cic. de Orat., i. 54.
- ↑ We may compare the argument used by Despair, and the answer of the Red Cross Knight, in Spenser (Fairy Queen, I. ix, 40, 41).
- ↑ Wordsworth's Ode on Immortality.
- ↑
"Such are those thick and gloomy shadows damp,
Oft seen in charnel-vaults and sepulchres,
Lingering, and sitting by a new-made grave,
As loth to leave the body that it loved."
—Milton, "Comus," 470. - ↑ Macaulay's Essay on Lord Bacon.