Ech. How should I not?

6. Phaed. He, then, was entirely overcome by these emotions; and I, too, was troubled, as well as the others.

Ech. But who were present, Phaedo?

Phaed. Of his fellow-countrymen, this Apollodorus was present, and Critobulus, and his father, Crito; moreover, Hermogenes, Epigenes, AEschines and Antisthenes; Ctesippus the Paeanian, Menexenus, and some others of his countrymen, were also there:  Plato, I think, was sick.

Ech. Were any strangers present?

Phaed. Yes; Simmias, the Theban, Cebes and Phaedondes; and from Megara, Euclides and Terpsion.

7. Ech. But what! were not Aristippus and Cleombrotus present?

Phaed. No, for they were said to be at AEgina.

Ech. Was any one else there?

Phaed. I think that these were nearly all who were present.

Ech. Well, now, what do you say was the subject of conversation?

Phaed. I will endeavor to relate the whole to you from the beginning.  On the preceding days I and the others were constantly in the habit of visiting Socrates, meeting early in the morning at the court house where the trial took place, for it was near the prison. 8.  Here, then, we waited every day till the prison was opened, conversing with each other, for it was not opened very early; but as soon as it was opened we went in to Socrates, and usually spent the day with him.  On that occasion, however, we met earlier than usual; for on the preceding day, when we left the prison in the evening, we heard that the ship had arrived from Delos.  We therefore urged each other to come as early as possible to the accustomed place.  Accordingly we came; and the porter, who used to admit us, coming out, told us to wait, and not to enter until he had called us.  “For,” he said, “the Eleven are now freeing Socrates from his bonds, and announcing to him that he must die to-day.”  But in no long time he returned, and bade us enter.

9.  When we entered, we found Socrates just freed from his bonds, and Xantippe, you know her, holding his little boy, and sitting by him.  As soon as Xantippe saw us she wept aloud, and said such things as women usually do on such occasions—­as, “Socrates, your friends will now converse with you for the last time, and you with them.”  But Socrates, looking towards Crito, said:  “Crito, let some one take her home.”  Upon which some of Crito’s attendants led her away, wailing and beating herself.

But Socrates, sitting up in bed, drew up his leg, and rubbed it with his hand, and as he rubbed it, said:  “What an unaccountable thing, my friends, that seems to be, which men call pleasure! and how wonderfully is it related toward that which appears to be its contrary, pain, in that they will not both be present to a man at the same time!  Yet if any one pursues and attains the one, he is almost always compelled to receive the other, as if they were both united together from one head.”