The historians' history of the world in twenty-five volumes, volume 04 : $b Greece to the Roman Conquest
History
The historians' history of the world in twenty-five volumes, volume 04 : $b Greece to the Roman Conquest
World history
“Just as you please,” he said, “if only you can catch me, and I do not
escape from you.” And at the same time smiling gently, and looking
around on us, he said; “I cannot persuade Crito, my friends, that I am
that Socrates who is now conversing with you, and who methodises each
part of the discourse; but he thinks I am he whom he will shortly behold
dead, and asks how he should bury me. But that which I sometime argued
at length, that when I have drunk the poison I shall no longer remain
with you, but shall depart to some happy state of the blessed, this I
seem to have urged to him in vain, though I meant at the same time to
console both you and myself. Be ye then my sureties to Crito,” he said,
“in an obligation contrary to that which he made to the judges; for he
undertook that I should remain; but do you be sureties that, when I die,
I shall not remain, but shall depart, that Crito may more easily bear it,
and when he sees my body either burnt or buried, may not be afflicted
for me, as if I suffered some dreadful thing, nor say at my interment
that Socrates is laid out, or is carried out, or is buried. For be well
assured,” he said, “most excellent Crito, that to speak improperly is not
only culpable as to the thing itself, but likewise occasions some injury
to our souls. You must have a good courage then, and say that you bury
my body, and bury it in such a manner as is pleasing to you, and as you
think is most agreeable to our laws.”
When he had said thus he rose, and went into a chamber to bathe, and
Crito followed him, but he directed us to wait for him. We waited,
therefore, conversing among ourselves about what had been said, and
considering it again, and sometimes speaking about our calamity, how
severe it would be to us, sincerely thinking that, like those who are
deprived of a father, we should pass the rest of our life as orphans.
When he had bathed, and his children were brought to him, for he had two
little sons and one grown up, and the women belonging to his family were
come, having conversed with them in the presence of Crito, and given them
such injunctions as he wished, he directed the women and children to go
away, and then returned to us.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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