ΚΡΙΤΩΝ
Benjamin Jowett
Plato · Benjamin Jowett
Scene: a prison in or near the Athenian Agora
Socrates: Why have you come at this hour, Crito? it must be quite early?
Crito: Yes, certainly.
Socrates: What is the exact time?
Crito: The dawn is breaking.
Socrates: I wonder that the keeper of the prison would let you in.
Crito: He knows me, because I often come, Socrates; moreover, I have done him a kindness.
Socrates: And are you only just arrived?
Crito: No, I came some time ago.
Socrates: Then why did you sit and say nothing, instead of at once awakening me?
Crito: I should not have liked myself, Socrates, to be in such great trouble and unrest as you are — indeed I should not: I have been watching with amazement your peaceful slumbers; and for that reason I did not awake you, because I wished to minimize the pain. I have always thought you to be of a happy disposition; but never did I see anything like the easy, tranquil manner in which you bear this calamity.
Socrates: Why, Crito, when a man has reached my age he ought not to be repining at the approach of death.
Crito: And yet other old men find themselves in similar misfortunes, and age does not prevent them from repining.
Socrates: That is true. But you have not told me why you come at this early hour.
Crito: I come to bring you a message which is sad and painful; not, as I believe, to yourself, but to all of us who are your friends, and saddest of all to me.
Socrates: What? Has the ship come from Delos, on the arrival of which I am to die?
Crito: No, the ship has not actually arrived, but she will probably be here to-day, as persons who have come from Sunium tell me that they have left her there; and therefore to-morrow, Socrates, will be the last day of your life.
Socrates: Very well, Crito; if such is the will of God, I am willing; but my belief is that there will be a delay of a day.
Crito: Why do you think so?
Socrates: I will tell you. I am to die on the day after the arrival of the ship?
Crito: Yes; that is what the authorities say.
Socrates: But I do not think that the ship will be here until to-morrow; this I infer from a vision which I had last night, or rather only just now, when you fortunately allowed me to sleep.
Crito: And what was the nature of the vision?
Socrates: There appeared to me the likeness of a woman, fair and comely, clothed in bright raiment, who called to me and said: O Socrates,
‘The third day hence to fertile Phthia shalt thou go.’ 3
Crito: What a singular dream, Socrates!
Socrates: There can be no doubt about the meaning, Crito, I think.
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The Athenian who turned Socratic conversation into a written philosophy and founded the Academy.
Plato was born around 428 BCE into a wealthy and politically prominent Athenian family; through his mother Perictione the family traced kinship to the lawgiver Solon, and his relatives Critias and Charmides were among the oligarchs of the Thirty. A late tradition says his given name was Aristocles and that 'Plato' — from the word for 'broad' — was a nickname. He grew up during the long agony of the Peloponnesian War and came of age amid the violence and disillusion that followed Athens' defeat.
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