“I will endeavor to do so,” he said.  “But first let us attend to Crito here, and see what it is he seems to have for some time wished to say.”

“What else, Socrates,” said Crito, “but what he who is to give you the poison told me some time ago, that I should tell you to speak as little as possible?  For he says that men become too much heated by speaking, and that nothing of this kind ought to interfere with the poison; and that, otherwise, those who did so were sometimes compelled to drink two or three times.”

To which Socrates replied, “Let him alone, and let him attend to his own business, and prepare to give it me twice, or, if occasion require, even thrice.”

21.  “I was almost certain what you would say,” answered Crito, “but he has been some time pestering me.”

“Never mind him,” he rejoined.

“But now I wish to render an account to you, my judges, of the reason why a man who has really devoted his life to philosophy, when he is about to die, appears to me, on good grounds, to have confidence, and to entertain a firm hope that the greatest good will befall him in the other world when he has departed this life.  How, then, this comes to pass, Simmias and Cebes, I will endeavor to explain.”

“For as many as rightly apply themselves to philosophy seem to have left all others in ignorance, that they aim at nothing else than to die and be dead.  If this, then, is true, it would surely be absurd to be anxious about nothing else than this during their whole life, but, when it arrives, to be grieved at what they have been long anxious about and aimed at.”

22.  Upon this, Simmias, smiling, said, “By Jupiter!  Socrates, though I am not now at all inclined to smile, you have made me do so; for I think that the multitude, if they heard this, would think it was very well said in reference to philosophers, and that our countrymen particularly would agree with you, that true philosophers do desire death, and that they are by no means ignorant that they deserve to suffer it.”

“And, indeed, Simmias, they would speak the truth, except in asserting that they are not ignorant; for they are ignorant of the sense in which true philosophers desire to die, and in what sense they deserve death, and what kind of death.  But,” he said, “let us take leave of them, and speak to one another.  Do we think that death is any thing?”

“Certainly,” replied Simmias.

23.  “Is it any thing else than the separation of the soul from the body?  And is not this to die, for the body to be apart by itself separated from the soul, and for the soul to subsist apart by itself separated from the body?  Is death any thing else than this?”

“No, but this,” he replied.

“Consider, then, my good friend, whether you are of the same opinion as I; for thus, I think, we shall understand better the subject we are considering.  Does it appear to you to be becoming in a philosopher to be anxious about pleasures, as they are called, such as meats and drinks?”