Complete Works (14 page)

It is clear where Socrates stands; he is committed, as a public figure known
for pleading the preeminent value of the civic virtues, to honoring them in his
personal life—and death. But the dialogue itself, through Crito’s ignored appeal
to justice in the private sphere, invites the reader to reflect on a wider
range of issues about justice than Socrates himself addresses. Did justice really
require that Socrates stay to accept his death?

J.M.C.

[43]
S
OCRATES
: Why have you come so early, Crito? Or is it not still early?

C
RITO
: It certainly is.

S
OCRATES
: How early?

C
RITO
: Early dawn.

S
OCRATES
: I am surprised that the warder was willing to listen to you.

C
RITO
: He is quite friendly to me by now, Socrates. I have been here often and I have given him something.

S
OCRATES
: Have you just come, or have you been here for some time?

C
RITO
: A fair time.

[b] S
OCRATES
: Then why did you not wake me right away but sit there in silence?

C
RITO
: By Zeus no, Socrates. I would not myself want to be in distress and awake so long. I have been surprised to see you so peacefully asleep. It was on purpose that I did not wake you, so that you should spend your time most agreeably. Often in the past throughout my life, I have considered the way you live happy, and especially so now that you bear your present misfortune so easily and lightly.

S
OCRATES
: It would not be fitting at my age to resent the fact that I must die now.

[c] C
RITO
: Other men of your age are caught in such misfortunes, but their age does not prevent them resenting their fate.

S
OCRATES
: That is so. Why have you come so early?

C
RITO
: I bring bad news, Socrates, not for you, apparently, but for me and all your friends the news is bad and hard to bear. Indeed, I would count it among the hardest.

S
OCRATES
: What is it? Or has the ship arrived from Delos, at the arrival [d] of which I must die?

C
RITO
: It has not arrived yet, but it will, I believe, arrive today, according to a message some men brought from Sunium, where they left it. This makes it obvious that it will come today, and that your life must end tomorrow.

S
OCRATES
: May it be for the best. If it so please the gods, so be it. However, I do not think it will arrive today.

C
RITO
: What indication have you of this?
[44]

S
OCRATES
: I will tell you. I must die the day after the ship arrives.

C
RITO
: That is what those in authority say.

S
OCRATES
: Then I do not think it will arrive on this coming day, but on the next. I take to witness of this a dream I had a little earlier during this night. It looks as if it was the right time for you not to wake me.

C
RITO
: What was your dream?

S
OCRATES
: I thought that a beautiful and comely woman dressed in white approached me. She called me and said: “Socrates, may you arrive at fertile [b] Phthia
¹
on the third day.”

C
RITO
: A strange dream, Socrates.

S
OCRATES
: But it seems clear enough to me, Crito.

C
RITO
: Too clear it seems, my dear Socrates, but listen to me even now and be saved. If you die, it will not be a single misfortune for me. Not only will I be deprived of a friend, the like of whom I shall never find again, but many people who do not know you or me very well will think [c] that I could have saved you if I were willing to spend money, but that I did not care to do so. Surely there can be no worse reputation than to be thought to value money more highly than one’s friends, for the majority will not believe that you yourself were not willing to leave prison while we were eager for you to do so.

S
OCRATES
: My good Crito, why should we care so much for what the majority think? The most reasonable people, to whom one should pay more attention, will believe that things were done as they were done.

C
RITO
: You see, Socrates, that one must also pay attention to the opinion [d] of the majority. Your present situation makes clear that the majority can inflict not the least but pretty well the greatest evils if one is slandered among them.

S
OCRATES
: Would that the majority could inflict the greatest evils, for they would then be capable of the greatest good, and that would be fine, but now they cannot do either. They cannot make a man either wise or foolish, but they inflict things haphazardly.

[e] C
RITO
: That may be so. But tell me this, Socrates, are you anticipating that I and your other friends would have trouble with the informers if you escape from here, as having stolen you away, and that we should be compelled to lose all our property or pay heavy fines and suffer other
[45]
punishment besides? If you have any such fear, forget it. We would be justified in running this risk to save you, and worse, if necessary. Do follow my advice, and do not act differently.

S
OCRATES
: I do have these things in mind, Crito, and also many others.

C
RITO
: Have no such fear. It is not much money that some people require to save you and get you out of here. Further, do you not see that those informers are cheap, and that not much money would be needed to deal [b] with them? My money is available and is, I think, sufficient. If, because of your affection for me, you feel you should not spend any of mine, there are those strangers here ready to spend money. One of them, Simmias the Theban, has brought enough for this very purpose. Cebes, too, and a good many others. So, as I say, do not let this fear make you hesitate to save yourself, nor let what you said in court trouble you, that you would not [c] know what to do with yourself if you left Athens, for you would be welcomed in many places to which you might go. If you want to go to Thessaly, I have friends there who will greatly appreciate you and keep you safe, so that no one in Thessaly will harm you.

Besides, Socrates, I do not think that what you are doing is just, to give up your life when you can save it, and to hasten your fate as your enemies would hasten it, and indeed have hastened it in their wish to destroy you. [d] Moreover, I think you are betraying your sons by going away and leaving them, when you could bring them up and educate them. You thus show no concern for what their fate may be. They will probably have the usual fate of orphans. Either one should not have children, or one should share with them to the end the toil of upbringing and education. You seem to me to choose the easiest path, whereas one should choose the path a good and courageous man would choose, particularly when one claims throughout one’s life to care for virtue.

[e] I feel ashamed on your behalf and on behalf of us, your friends, lest all that has happened to you be thought due to cowardice on our part: the fact that your trial came to court when it need not have done so, the handling of the trial itself, and now this absurd ending which will be thought to have got beyond our control through some cowardice and
[46]
unmanliness on our part, since we did not save you, or you save yourself, when it was possible and could be done if we had been of the slightest use. Consider, Socrates, whether this is not only evil, but shameful, both for you and for us. Take counsel with yourself, or rather the time for counsel is past and the decision should have been taken, and there is no further opportunity, for this whole business must be ended tonight. If we delay now, then it will no longer be possible; it will be too late. Let me persuade you on every count, Socrates, and do not act otherwise.

S
OCRATES
: My dear Crito, your eagerness is worth much if it should have [b] some right aim; if not, then the greater your keenness the more difficult it is to deal with. We must therefore examine whether we should act in this way or not, as not only now but at all times I am the kind of man who listens to nothing within me but the argument that on reflection seems best to me. I cannot, now that this fate has come upon me, discard the arguments I used; they seem to me much the same. I value and respect [c] the same principles as before, and if we have no better arguments to bring up at this moment, be sure that I shall not agree with you, not even if the power of the majority were to frighten us with more bogeys, as if we were children, with threats of incarcerations and executions and confiscation of property. How should we examine this matter most reasonably? Would it be by taking up first your argument about the opinions of men, whether [d] it is sound in every case that one should pay attention to some opinions, but not to others? Or was that well-spoken before the necessity to die came upon me, but now it is clear that this was said in vain for the sake of argument, that it was in truth play and nonsense? I am eager to examine together with you, Crito, whether this argument will appear in any way different to me in my present circumstances, or whether it remains the same, whether we are to abandon it or believe it. It was said on every occasion by those who thought they were speaking sensibly, as I have just [e] now been speaking, that one should greatly value some people’s opinions, but not others. Does that seem to you a sound statement?

You, as far as a human being can tell, are exempt from the likelihood of dying tomorrow, so the present misfortune is not likely to lead you
[47]
astray. Consider then, do you not think it a sound statement that one must not value all the opinions of men, but some and not others, nor the opinions of all men, but those of some and not of others? What do you say? Is this not well said?

C
RITO
: It is.

S
OCRATES
: One should value the good opinions, and not the bad ones?

C
RITO
: Yes.

S
OCRATES
: The good opinions are those of wise men, the bad ones those of foolish men?

C
RITO
: Of course.

S
OCRATES
: Come then, what of statements such as this: Should a man professionally engaged in physical training pay attention to the praise and [b] blame and opinion of any man, or to those of one man only, namely a doctor or trainer?

C
RITO
: To those of one only.

S
OCRATES
: He should therefore fear the blame and welcome the praise of that one man, and not those of the many?

C
RITO
: Obviously.

S
OCRATES
: He must then act and exercise, eat and drink in the way the one, the trainer and the one who knows, thinks right, not all the others?

C
RITO
: That is so.

[c] S
OCRATES
: Very well. And if he disobeys the one, disregards his opinion and his praises while valuing those of the many who have no knowledge, will he not suffer harm?

C
RITO
: Of course.

S
OCRATES
: What is that harm, where does it tend, and what part of the man who disobeys does it affect?

C
RITO
: Obviously the harm is to his body, which it ruins.

S
OCRATES
: Well said. So with other matters, not to enumerate them all, and certainly with actions just and unjust, shameful and beautiful, good [d] and bad, about which we are now deliberating, should we follow the opinion of the many and fear it, or that of the one, if there is one who has knowledge of these things and before whom we feel fear and shame more than before all the others. If we do not follow his directions, we shall harm and corrupt that part of ourselves that is improved by just actions and destroyed by unjust actions. Or is there nothing in this?

C
RITO
: I think there certainly is, Socrates.

S
OCRATES
: Come now, if we ruin that which is improved by health and corrupted by disease by not following the opinions of those who know, [e] is life worth living for us when that is ruined? And that is the body, is it not?

C
RITO
: Yes.

S
OCRATES
: And is life worth living with a body that is corrupted and in bad condition?

C
RITO
: In no way.

S
OCRATES
: And is life worth living for us with that part of us corrupted that unjust action harms and just action benefits? Or do we think that part
[48]
of us, whatever it is, that is concerned with justice and injustice, is inferior to the body?

C
RITO
: Not at all.

S
OCRATES
: It is more valuable?

C
RITO
: Much more.

S
OCRATES
: We should not then think so much of what the majority will say about us, but what he will say who understands justice and injustice, the one, that is, and the truth itself. So that, in the first place, you were wrong to believe that we should care for the opinion of the many about what is just, beautiful, good, and their opposites. “But,” someone might say, “the many are able to put us to death.”

[b] C
RITO
: That too is obvious, Socrates, and someone might well say so.

S
OCRATES
: And, my admirable friend, that argument that we have gone through remains, I think, as before. Examine the following statement in turn as to whether it stays the same or not, that the most important thing is not life, but the good life.

C
RITO
: It stays the same.