Phaedo
- Language:
- English
- Status:
- Complete work
- Authorship:
- Written by the author
- Condition of the text:
- Clean text
- Extent:
- ~41,700 words · 198 passages
Cite this work
- APAPlato. (n.d.). Phaedo. SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/plato/phaedo
- MLAPlato. "Phaedo." SigPhi, https://sigphiai.com/en/works/plato/phaedo.
- ChicagoPlato. Phaedo. SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/plato/phaedo.
What it is about
Socrates' last day, told by one who was there: the conversation in the cell about whether the soul is immortal, and the serenity with which, at dusk, he drinks the hemlock.
Context and history
Written around the 380s BC, it closes the cycle of Socrates' death that the Apology opens. Plato notes, with a discretion that has spilled rivers of ink, that he himself was not there that day: 'Plato was ill'. The arguments for the soul's immortality and the theory of forms are more fully unfolded here than anywhere, but what has made the dialogue immortal is the final scene — the master consoling his weeping disciples. For antiquity it was THE book on how a philosopher dies.
Editorial context, not a citable source: unlike the passages of the work itself, these statements cannot be checked against the corpus.
After an interval of some months or years, and at Phlius, a town of Peloponnesus, the tale of the last hours of Socrates is narrated to Echecrates and other Phliasians by Phaedo the 'beloved disciple.' The Dialogue necessarily takes the form of a narrative, because Socrates has to be described acting as well as speaking. The minutest particulars of the event are interesting to distant friends, and the narrator has an equal interest in them. During the voyage of the sacred ship to and from Delos, which has occupied thirty days, the execution of Socrates has been deferred. (Compare Xen. Mem.) The time has been passed by him in conversation with a select company of disciples. But now the holy season is over, and the disciples meet earlier than usual in order that they may converse with Socrates for the last time. Those who were present, and those who might have been expected to be present, are mentioned by name. There are Simmias and Cebes (Crito), two disciples of Philolaus whom Socrates 'by his enchantments has attracted from Thebes' (Mem.), Crito the aged friend, the attendant of the prison, who is as good as a friend--these take part in the conversation. There are present also, Hermogenes, from whom Xenophon derived his information about the trial of Socrates (Mem.), the 'madman' Apollodorus (Symp.), Euclid and Terpsion from Megara (compare Theaet.), Ctesippus, Antisthenes, Menexenus, and some other less-known members of the Socratic circle, all of whom are silent auditors. Aristippus, Cleombrotus, and Plato are noted as absent. Almost as soon as the friends of Socrates enter the prison Xanthippe and her children are sent home in the care of one of Crito's servants. Socrates himself has just been released from chains, and is led by this circumstance to make the natural remark that 'pleasure follows pain.' (Observe that Plato is preparing the way for his doctrine of the alter