SOCRATES: Yes, Callicles, if he have that defence, which as you have
often acknowledged he should have—if he be his own defence, and have
never said or done anything wrong, either in respect of gods or men;
and this has been repeatedly acknowledged by us to be the best sort of
defence. And if any one could convict me of inability to defend myself
or others after this sort, I should blush for shame, whether I was
convicted before many, or before a few, or by myself alone; and if I
died from want of ability to do so, that would indeed grieve me. But if
I died because I have no powers of flattery or rhetoric, I am very sure
that you would not find me repining at death. For no man who is not an
utter fool and coward is afraid of death itself, but he is afraid of
doing wrong. For to go to the world below having one’s soul full of
injustice is the last and worst of all evils. And in proof of what I
say, if you have no objection, I should like to tell you a story.
CALLICLES: Very well, proceed; and then we shall have done.
SOCRATES: Listen, then, as story-tellers say, to a very pretty tale,
which I dare say that you may be disposed to regard as a fable only,
but which, as I believe, is a true tale, for I mean to speak the truth.
Homer tells us (Il.), how Zeus and Poseidon and Pluto divided the
empire which they inherited from their father. Now in the days of
Cronos there existed a law respecting the destiny of man, which has
always been, and still continues to be in Heaven,—that he who has lived
all his life in justice and holiness shall go, when he is dead, to the
Islands of the Blessed, and dwell there in perfect happiness out of the
reach of evil; but that he who has lived unjustly and impiously shall
go to the house of vengeance and punishment, which is called Tartarus.
And in the time of Cronos, and even quite lately in the reign of Zeus,
the judgment was given on the very day on which the men were to die;
the judges were alive, and the men were alive; and the consequence was
that the judgments were not well given. Then Pluto and the authorities
from the Islands of the Blessed came to Zeus, and said that the souls
found their way to the wrong places. Zeus said: “I shall put a stop to
this; the judgments are not well given, because the persons who are
judged have their clothes on, for they are alive; and there are many
who, having evil souls, are apparelled in fair bodies, or encased in
wealth or rank, and, when the day of judgment arrives, numerous
witnesses come forward and testify on their behalf that they have lived
righteously. The judges are awed by them, and they themselves too have
their clothes on when judging; their eyes and ears and their whole
bodies are interposed as a veil before their own souls. All this is a
hindrance to them; there are the clothes of the judges and the clothes
of the judged.—What is to be done? I will tell you:—In the first place,
I will deprive men of the foreknowledge of death, which they possess at