When his friends visit him in the morning for the purpose of spending this his last day with him, they find him sitting up in bed, and rubbing his leg, which had just been freed from bonds.  He remarks on the unaccountable alternation and connection between pleasure and pain, and adds that AEsop, had he observed it, would have made a fable from it.  This remark reminds Cebes of Socrates’s having put some of AEsop’s fables into metre since his imprisonment, and he asks, for the satisfaction of the poet Evenus, what has induced him to do so.  Socrates explains his reason, and concludes by bidding him tell Evenus to follow him as soon as he can.  Simmias expresses his surprise at this message, on which Socrates asks, “Is not Evenus a philosopher?” and on the question being answered in the affirmative, he says that he or any philosopher would be willing to die, though perhaps he would not commit violence on himself.  This, again, seems a contradiction to Simmias; but Socrates explains it by showing that our souls are placed in the body by God, and may not leave it without his permission.  Whereupon Cebes objects that in that case foolish men only would wish to die, and quit the service of the best of masters, to which Simmias agrees.  Socrates, therefore, proposes to plead his cause before them, and to show that there is a great probability that after this life he shall go into the presence of God and good men, and be happy in proportion to the purity of his own mind.

He begins[12] by stating that philosophy itself is nothing else than a preparation for and meditation on death.  Death and philosophy have this in common:  death separates the soul from the body; philosophy draws off the mind from bodily things to the contemplation of truth and virtue:  for he is not a true philosopher who is led away by bodily pleasures, since the senses are the source of ignorance and all evil.  The mind, therefore, is entirely occupied in meditating on death, and freeing itself as much as possible from the body.  How, then, can such a man be afraid of death?  He who grieves at the approach of death can not be a true lover of wisdom, but is a lover of his body.  And, indeed, most men are temperate through intemperance; that is to say, they abstain from some pleasures that they may the more easily and permanently enjoy others.  They embrace only a shadow of virtue, not virtue itself, since they estimate the value of all things by the pleasures they afford.  Whereas the philosopher purifies his mind from all such things, and pursues virtue and wisdom for their own sakes.  This course Socrates himself has pursued to the utmost of his ability, with what success he should shortly know; and on these grounds he did not repine at leaving his friends in this world, being persuaded that in another he should meet with good masters and good friends.

Upon this Cebes[13] says that he agrees with all else that had been said, but can not help entertaining doubts of what will become of the soul when separated from the body, for the common opinion is that it is dispersed and vanishes like breath or smoke, and no longer exists anywhere.  Socrates, therefore, proposes to inquire into the probability of the case, a fit employment for him under his present circumstances.