"Listen, then, Socrates, to us who have brought you up. Think not of life and children first, and of justice afterward, 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 the 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. _Crito_: I have nothing to say, Socrates. _Socrates_: Then let me follow the intimations of the will of God. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 71: From the "Crito," translated by Benjamin Jowett. Crito was an influential and well-to-do citizen of Athens and a friend of Socrates; but nothing more definite about him is known.] VI THE DEATH OF SOCRATES[72] "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 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 to 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?"