Phaedrus — Plato

p. 430Many a man has been willing to go to the world below in the hope of seeing there an earthly love, or wife, or son, and conversing with them. And will he who is a true lover of wisdom, and is persuaded in like manner that only in the world below he can worthily enjoy her, still repine at death ? Will he not depart with joy ? Surely, he will, my friend, if he be a true philosopher.

For he will have a firm conviction that there only, and nowhere else, he can find wisdom in her purity. And if this be true, he would be very absurd, as I was saying, if he were to fear death. He would indeed, repHed Simmias.

And when you see a man who is repining at the approach of death, is not his reluctance a sufficient proof that he is not a lover of wisdom, but a lover of the body, and probably at the same time a lover of either money or power, or both ? That is very true, he replied. There is a virtue, Simmias, which is named courage. Is not that a special attribute of the philosopher ? Certainly. Again, there is temperance.

Is not the calm, and control, and disdain of the passions which even the many call temperance, a quality belonging only to those who despise the body, and live in philosophy? That is not to be denied. For the courage and temperance of other men, if you will consider them, are really a contradiction. How is that, Socrates ? Well, he said, you are aware that death is regarded by men in general as a great evil. That is true, he said.

And do not courageous men endure death because they are afraid of yet greater evils ? That is true. Then all but the philosophers are courageous only from fear, and because they are afraid ; and yet that a man should be courageous from fear, and because he is a coward, is surely a strange thing. Very true. And are not the temperate exactly in the same case ?

They are temperate because they are intemperate, — which may seem to be a contradiction, but is nevertheless the sort of thing which

PHiEDO 43 1 happens with this foolish temperance. For there are pleasures which they must have, and are afraid of losing ; and therefore they abstain from one class of pleasures because they are overcome by another: and whereas intemperance is defined as ^ * * being under the dominion of pleasure, * * they overcome ^ only because they are overcome by pleasure. And that is what I mean by saying that they are temperate through intemperance.

That appears to be true. Yet the exchange of one fear or pleasure or pain for another fear or pleasure or pain, which are measured like coins, the greater with the less, is not the exchange of virtue. O my dear Simmias, is there not one true coin for which all things ought to exchange? — and that is wisdom ^8; and only in exchange for this, and in company with this, is anything truly bought or sold, whether courage or temperance or justice.

And is not all true virtue the companion of wisdom, no matter what fears or pleasures or other similar goods or evils may or may not attend her ?

But the virtue which is made up of these goods, when they are severed from wisdom and exchanged with one another, is a shadow of virtue only, nor is there any freedom or health or truth in her ; but in the true exchange there is a purging away of all these things, and temperance, and justice, and courage, and wisdom herself, are a purgation of them.

And I conceive that the founders of the mysteries ^^ had a real meaning and were not mere triflers when they intimated in a figure long ago that he who passed unsanctified and uninitiated into the world below will live in a slough, but that he who arrives there after initiation and purification will dwell with the gods.

For **many,** as they say in the mysteries, **are the thyrsus-bearers, but few are the mystics,'*^ — meaning, as I " Compare Isaiah Iv. 2 : " Wherefore do ye spend money for that which is not bread and your labor for that which satisfieth not. Compare also Protagoras. 349-360. Also Matt. xiii.

45 and 46: " Again the kingdom of heaven is like unto a merchantman, seeking goodly pearls : who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had, and bought it." *» See Symposium, note 32. a J Dionysus or Bacchus, god of wine, was one of the gods in whose worship mysteries were employed. His devotees carried a wand or thyrsus.

Among these wand-bearers were many whose participation in the rites was merely formal, in comparison with whom the true worshippers were few. Hence arose the proverb quoted by Socrates. According to his interpretation, only philosophers are completely purified and initiated into an understanding of divine things. Compare Matt xxii. 14: " For many are called but few are chosen."

p. 432interpret the words, the true philosophers. In the number of whom I have been seeking, according to my ability, to find a place during my whole life ; whether I have sought in a right way or not, and whether I have succeeded or not, I shall truly know in a little while, if God will, when I myself arrive in the other world : that is my belief.

And now Simmias and Cebes, I have answered those who charge me with not grieving or repining at parting from you and my masters in this world ; and I am right in not repining, for I believe that I shall find other masters and friends who are as good in the world below. But all men cannot receive this, and I shall be glad if my words have any more success with you than with the judges of Athenians.

Gebes answered : I agree, Socrates, in the greater part of what you say. But in what relates to the soul, men are apt to be incredulous ; they fear that when she leaves the body ' her place may be nowhere, and that on the very day of death she may be destroyed and perish, — immediately on her release from the body, issuing forth like smoke or air and vanishing away into nothingness.

For if she could only hold together and be herself after she was released from the evils of the body, there would be good reason to hope, Socrates, that what you say is true. But much persuasion and many arguments are required in order to prove that when the man is dead the soul yet exists, and has any force or intelligence. True, Cebes, said Socrates; and shall I suggest that we talk a little of the probabilities of these things?

I am sure, said Cebes, that I should greatly like to know your opinion about them. I reckon, said Socrates, that no one who beard rae now, not even if he were one of my old enemies, the comic poets,^ could accuse me of idle talking about matters in which I have no concern.

Let us then, if you please, proceed with the inquiry. [Socrates recalls an ancient doctrine that the souls of men pass after'death into the other world, whence they return and •» See Apology, note 5. Eupolis (Q'p6-lis), another comic poet of the day, said of Socrates : " I hate Socrates, that prating beggar, who pays great attention, forsooth, to all these other things, but as to how withal he shall be fed, to this he gives no heed at all. Other instances also are known of the enmity of the poets for Socrates.