Crito
by Plato
translated by Benjamin Jowett
Persons of the Dialogue: Socrates, Crito.
Scene: The Prison of Socrates.
Socrates: Why have you come at this hour, Crito? it must be
quite early.
Crito: Yes, certainly.
Socrates: What is the exact time?
Crito: The dawn is breaking.
Socrates: I wonder that the keeper of the prison would let you
in.
Crito: He knows me because I often come, Socrates; moreover. I
have done him a kindness.
Socrates: And are you only just arrived?
Crito: No, I came some time ago.
Socrates: Then why did you sit and say nothing, instead of at
once awakening me?
Crito: I should not have liked myself, Socrates, to be in such
great trouble and unrest as you are--indeed I should not: I have
been watching with amazement your peaceful slumbers; and for that
reason I did not awake you, because I wished to minimize the pain.
I have always thought you to be of a happy disposition; but never
did I see anything like the easy, tranquil manner in which you
bear this calamity.
Socrates: Why, Crito, when a man has reached my age he ought
not to be repining at the approach of death.
Crito: And yet other old men find themselves in similar
misfortunes, and age does not prevent them from repining.
Socrates: That is true. But you have not told me why you come
at this early hour.
Crito: I come to bring you a message which is sad and painful;
not, as I believe, to yourself, but to all of us who are your
friends, and saddest of all to me.
Socrates: What? Has the ship come from Delos, on the arrival
of which I am to die?
Crito: No, the ship has not actually arrived, but she will
probably be here to-day, as persons who have come from Sunium
tell me that they have left her there; and therefore to-morrow,
Socrates, will be the last day of your life.
Socrates: Very well, Crito; if such is the will of God, I am
willing; but my belief is that there will be a delay of a day.
Crito: Why do you think so?
Socrates: I will tell you. I am to die on the day after the
arrival of the ship?
Crito: Yes; that is what the authorities say.
Socrates: But I do not think that the ship will be here until
to-morrow; this I infer from a vision which I had last night, or
rather only just now, when you fortunately allowed me to sleep.
Crito: And what was the nature of the vision?
Socrates: There appeared to me the likeness of a woman, fair
and comely, clothed in bright raiment, who called to me and said:
O Socrates,
"The third day hence to fertile Phthia shalt thou go."
(Homer, Il.)
Crito: What a singular dream, Socrates!
Socrates: There can be no doubt about the meaning, Crito, I
think.
Crito: Yes; the meaning is only too clear. But, oh! my beloved
Socrates, let me entreat you once more to take my advice and
escape. For if you die I shall not only lose a friend who can
never be replaced, but there is another evil: people who do not
know you and me will believe that I might have saved you if I had
been willing to give money, but that I did not care. Now, can
there be a worse disgrace than this--that I should be thought to
value money more than the life of a friend? For the many will not
be persuaded that I wanted you to escape, and that you refused.
Socrates: But why, my dear Crito, should we care about the
opinion of the many? Good men, and they are the only persons who
are worth considering, will think of these things truly as they
occurred.
Crito: But you see, Socrates, that the opinion of the many
must be regarded, for what is now happening shows that they can
do the greatest evil to any one who has lost their good opinion.
Socrates: I only wish it were so, Crito; and that the many
could do the greatest evil; for then they would also be able to
do the greatest good-- and what a fine thing this would be! But
in reality they can do neither; for they cannot make a man either
wise or foolish; and whatever they do is the result of chance.
Crito: Well, I will not dispute with you; but please to tell
me, Socrates, whether you are not acting out of regard to me and
your other friends: are you not afraid that if you escape from
prison we may get into trouble with the informers for having
stolen you away, and lose either the whole or a great part of our
property; or that even a worse evil may happen to us? Now, if you
fear on our account, be at ease; for in order to save you, we
ought surely to run this, or even a greater risk; be persuaded,
then, and do as I say.
Socrates: Yes, Crito, that is one fear which you mention, but
by no means the only one.
Crito: Fear not--there are persons who are willing to get you
out of prison at no great cost; and as for the informers they are
far from being exorbitant in their demands--a little money will
satisfy them. My means, which are certainly ample, are at your
service, and if you have a scruple about spending all mine, here
are strangers who will give you the use of theirs; and one of
them, Simmias the Theban, has brought a large sum of money for
this very purpose; and Cebes and many others are prepared to
spend their money in helping you to escape. I say, therefore, do
not hesitate on our account, and do not say, as you did in the
court (compare Apol.), that you will have a difficulty in knowing
what to do with yourself anywhere else. For men will love you in
other places to which you may go, and not in Athens only; there
are friends of mine in Thessaly, if you like to go to them, who
will value and protect you, and no Thessalian will give you any
trouble. Nor can I think that you are at all justified, Socrates,
in betraying your own life when you might be saved; in acting
thus you are playing into the hands of your enemies, who are
hurrying on your destruction. And further I should say that you
are deserting your own children; for you might bring them up and
educate them; instead of which you go away and leave them, and
they will have to take their chance; and if they do not meet with
the usual fate of orphans, there will be small thanks to you. No
man should bring children into the world who is unwilling to
persevere to the end in their nurture and education. But you
appear to be choosing the easier part, not the better and
manlier, which would have been more becoming in one who professes
to care for virtue in all his actions, like yourself. And indeed,
I am ashamed not only of you, but of us who are your friends,
when I reflect that the whole business will be attributed
entirely to our want of courage. The trial need never have come
on, or might have been managed differently; and this last act, or
crowning folly, will seem to have occurred through our negligence
and cowardice, who might have saved you, if we had been good for
anything; and you might have saved yourself, for there was no
difficulty at all. See now, Socrates, how sad and discreditable
are the consequences, both to us and you. Make up your mind then,
or rather have your mind already made up, for the time of
deliberation is over, and there is only one thing to be done,
which must be done this very night, and if we delay at all will
be no longer practicable or possible; I beseech you therefore,
Socrates, be persuaded by me, and do as I say.
Socrates: Dear Crito, your zeal is invaluable, if a right one;
but if wrong, the greater the zeal the greater the danger; and
therefore we ought to consider whether I shall or shall not do as
you say. For I am and always have been one of those natures who
must be guided by reason, whatever the reason may be which upon
reflection appears to me to be the best; and now that this chance
has befallen me, I cannot repudiate my own words: the principles
which I have hitherto honoured and revered I still honour, and
unless we can at once find other and better principles, I am
certain not to agree with you; no, not even if the power of the
multitude could inflict many more imprisonments, confiscations,
deaths, frightening us like children with hobgoblin terrors (compare
Apol.). What will be the fairest way of considering the question?
Shall I return to your old argument about the opinions of men?--we
were saying that some of them are to be regarded, and others not.
Now were we right in maintaining this before I was condemned? And
has the argument which was once good now proved to be talk for
the sake of talking--mere childish nonsense? That is what I want
to consider with your help, Crito:--whether, under my present
circumstances, the argument appears to be in any way different or
not; and is to be allowed by me or disallowed. That argument,
which, as I believe, is maintained by many persons of authority,
was to the effect, as I was saying, that the opinions of some men
are to be regarded, and of other men not to be regarded. Now you,
Crito, are not going to die to-morrow--at least, there is no
human probability of this, and therefore you are disinterested
and not liable to be deceived by the circumstances in which you
are placed. Tell me then, whether I am right in saying that some
opinions, and the opinions of some men only, are to be valued,
and that other opinions, and the opinions of other men, are not
to be valued. I ask you whether I was right in maintaining this?
Crito: Certainly.
Socrates: The good are to be regarded, and not the bad?
Crito: Yes.
Socrates: And the opinions of the wise are good, and the
opinions of the unwise are evil?
Crito: Certainly.
Socrates: And what was said about another matter? Is the pupil
who devotes himself to the practice of gymnastics supposed to
attend to the praise and blame and opinion of every man, or of
one man only--his physician or trainer, whoever he may be?
Crito: Of one man only.
Socrates: And he ought to fear the censure and welcome the
praise of that one only, and not of the many?
Crito: Clearly so.
Socrates: And he ought to act and train, and eat and drink in
the way which seems good to his single master who has
understanding, rather than according to the opinion of all other
men put together?
Crito: True.
Socrates: And if he disobeys and disregards the opinion and
approval of the one, and regards the opinion of the many who have
no understanding, will he not suffer evil?
Crito: Certainly he will.
Socrates: And what will the evil be, whither tending and what
affecting, in the disobedient person?
Crito: Clearly, affecting the body; that is what is destroyed
by the evil.
Socrates: Very good; and is not this true, Crito, of other
things which we need not separately enumerate? In questions of
just and unjust, fair and foul, good and evil, which are the
subjects of our present consultation, ought we to follow the
opinion of the many and to fear them; or the opinion of the one
man who has understanding? ought we not to fear and reverence him
more than all the rest of the world: and if we desert him shall
we not destroy and injure that principle in us which may be
assumed to be improved by justice and deteriorated by injustice;--there
is such a principle?
Crito: Certainly there is, Socrates.
Socrates: Take a parallel instance:--if, acting under the
advice of those who have no understanding, we destroy that which
is improved by health and is deteriorated by disease, would life
be worth having? And that which has been destroyed is--the body?
Crito: Yes.
Socrates: Could we live, having an evil and corrupted body?
Crito: Certainly not.
Socrates: And will life be worth having, if that higher part
of man be destroyed, which is improved by justice and depraved by
injustice? Do we suppose that principle, whatever it may be in
man, which has to do with justice and injustice, to be inferior
to the body?
Crito: Certainly not.
Socrates: More honourable than the body?
Crito: Far more.
Socrates: Then, my friend, we must not regard what the many
say of us: but what he, the one man who has understanding of just
and unjust, will say, and what the truth will say. And therefore
you begin in error when you advise that we should regard the
opinion of the many about just and unjust, good and evil,
honorable and dishonorable.--"Well," some one will say,
"but the many can kill us."
Crito: Yes, Socrates; that will clearly be the answer.
Socrates: And it is true; but still I find with surprise that
the old argument is unshaken as ever. And I should like to know
whether I may say the same of another proposition--that not life,
but a good life, is to be chiefly valued?
Crito: Yes, that also remains unshaken.
Socrates: And a good life is equivalent to a just and
honorable one--that holds also?
Crito: Yes, it does.
Socrates: From these premisses I proceed to argue the question
whether I ought or ought not to try and escape without the
consent of the Athenians: and if I am clearly right in escaping,
then I will make the attempt; but if not, I will abstain. The
other considerations which you mention, of money and loss of
character and the duty of educating one"s children, are, I
fear, only the doctrines of the multitude, who would be as ready
to restore people to life, if they were able, as they are to put
them to death--and with as little reason. But now, since the
argument has thus far prevailed, the only question which remains
to be considered is, whether we shall do rightly either in
escaping or in suffering others to aid in our escape and paying
them in money and thanks, or whether in reality we shall not do
rightly; and if the latter, then death or any other calamity
which may ensue on my remaining here must not be allowed to enter
into the calculation.
Crito: I think that you are right, Socrates; how then shall we
proceed?
Socrates: Let us consider the matter together, and do you
either refute me if you can, and I will be convinced; or else
cease, my dear friend, from repeating to me that I ought to
escape against the wishes of the Athenians: for I highly value
your attempts to persuade me to do so, but I may not be persuaded
against my own better judgment. And now please to consider my
first position, and try how you can best answer me.
Crito: I will.
Socrates: Are we to say that we are never intentionally to do
wrong, or that in one way we ought and in another way we ought
not to do wrong, or is doing wrong always evil and dishonorable,
as I was just now saying, and as has been already acknowledged by
us? Are all our former admissions which were made within a few
days to be thrown away? And have we, at our age, been earnestly
discoursing with one another all our life long only to discover
that we are no better than children? Or, in spite of the opinion
of the many, and in spite of consequences whether better or
worse, shall we insist on the truth of what was then said, that
injustice is always an evil and dishonour to him who acts
unjustly? Shall we say so or not?
Crito: Yes.
Socrates: Then we must do no wrong?
Crito: Certainly not.
Socrates: Nor when injured injure in return, as the many
imagine; for we must injure no one at all? (E.g. compare Rep.)
Crito: Clearly not.
Socrates: Again, Crito, may we do evil?
Crito: Surely not, Socrates.
Socrates: And what of doing evil in return for evil, which is
the morality of the many--is that just or not?
Crito: Not just.
Socrates: For doing evil to another is the same as injuring
him?
Crito: Very true.
Socrates: Then we ought not to retaliate or render evil for
evil to any one, whatever evil we may have suffered from him. But
I would have you consider, Crito, whether you really mean what
you are saying. For this opinion has never been held, and never
will be held, by any considerable number of persons; and those
who are agreed and those who are not agreed upon this point have
no common ground, and can only despise one another when they see
how widely they differ. Tell me, then, whether you agree with and
assent to my first principle, that neither injury nor retaliation
nor warding off evil by evil is ever right. And shall that be the
premiss of our argument? Or do you decline and dissent from this?
For so I have ever thought, and continue to think; but, if you
are of another opinion, let me hear what you have to say. If,
however, you remain of the same mind as formerly, I will proceed
to the next step.
Crito: You may proceed, for I have not changed my mind.
Socrates: Then I will go on to the next point, which may be
put in the form of a question:--Ought a man to do what he admits
to be right, or ought he to betray the right?
Crito: He ought to do what he thinks right.
Socrates: But if this is true, what is the application? In
leaving the prison against the will of the Athenians, do I wrong
any? or rather do I not wrong those whom I ought least to wrong?
Do I not desert the principles which were acknowledged by us to
be just--what do you say?
Crito: I cannot tell, Socrates, for I do not know.
Socrates: Then consider the matter in this way:--Imagine that
I am about to play truant (you may call the proceeding by any
name which you like), and the laws and the government come and
interrogate me: "Tell us, Socrates," they say; "what
are you about? are you not going by an act of yours to overturn
us--the laws, and the whole state, as far as in you lies? Do you
imagine that a state can subsist and not be overthrown, in which
the decisions of law have no power, but are set aside and
trampled upon by individuals?" What will be our answer,
Crito, to these and the like words? Any one, and especially a
rhetorician, will have a good deal to say on behalf of the law
which requires a sentence to be carried out. He will argue that
this law should not be set aside; and shall we reply, "Yes;
but the state has injured us and given an unjust sentence."
Suppose I say that?
Crito: Very good, Socrates.
Socrates: "And was that our agreement with you?" the
law would answer; "or were you to abide by the sentence of
the state?" And if I were to express my astonishment at
their words, the law would probably add: "Answer, Socrates,
instead of opening your eyes--you are in the habit of asking and
answering questions. Tell us,--What complaint have you to make
against us which justifies you in attempting to destroy us and
the state? In the first place did we not bring you into
existence? Your father married your mother by our aid and begat
you. Say whether you have any objection to urge against those of
us who regulate marriage?" None, I should reply. "Or
against those of us who after birth regulate the nurture and
education of children, in which you also were trained? Were not
the laws, which have the charge of education, right in commanding
your father to train you in music and gymnastic?" Right, I
should reply. "Well then, since you were brought into the
world and nurtured and educated by us, can you deny in the first
place that you are our child and slave, as your fathers were
before you? And if this is true you are not on equal terms with
us; nor can you think that you have a right to do to us what we
are doing to you. Would you have any right to strike or revile or
do any other evil to your father or your master, if you had one,
because you have been struck or reviled by him, or received some
other evil at his hands?--you would not say this? And because we
think right to destroy you, do you think that you have any right
to destroy us in return, and your country as far as in you lies?
Will you, O professor of true virtue, pretend that you are
justified in this? Has a philosopher like you failed to discover
that our country is more to be valued and higher and holier far
than mother or father or any ancestor, and more to be regarded in
the eyes of the gods and of men of understanding? also to be
soothed, and gently and reverently entreated when angry, even
more than a father, and either to be persuaded, or if not
persuaded, to be obeyed? And when we are punished by her, whether
with imprisonment or stripes, the punishment is to be endured in
silence; and if she lead us to wounds or death in battle, thither
we follow as is right; neither may any one yield or retreat or
leave his rank, but whether in battle or in a court of law, or in
any other place, he must do what his city and his country order
him; or he must change their view of what is just: and if he may
do no violence to his father or mother, much less may he do
violence to his country." What answer shall we make to this,
Crito? Do the laws speak truly, or do they not?
Crito: I think that they do.
Socrates: Then the laws will say: "Consider, Socrates, if
we are speaking truly that in your present attempt you are going
to do us an injury. For, having brought you into the world, and
nurtured and educated you, and given you and every other citizen
a share in every good which we had to give, we further proclaim
to any Athenian by the liberty which we allow him, that if he
does not like us when he has become of age and has seen the ways
of the city, and made our acquaintance, he may go where he
pleases and take his goods with him. None of us laws will forbid
him or interfere with him. Any one who does not like us and the
city, and who wants to emigrate to a colony or to any other city,
may go where he likes, retaining his property. But he who has
experience of the manner in which we order justice and administer
the state, and still remains, has entered into an implied
contract that he will do as we command him. And he who disobeys
us is, as we maintain, thrice wrong: first, because in disobeying
us he is disobeying his parents; secondly, because we are the
authors of his education; thirdly, because he has made an
agreement with us that he will duly obey our commands; and he
neither obeys them nor convinces us that our commands are unjust;
and we do not rudely impose them, but give him the alternative of
obeying or convincing us;--that is what we offer, and he does
neither.
"These are the sort of accusations to which, as we were
saying, you, Socrates, will be exposed if you accomplish your
intentions; you, above all other Athenians." Suppose now I
ask, why I rather than anybody else? they will justly retort upon
me that I above all other men have acknowledged the agreement.
"There is clear proof," they will say, "Socrates,
that we and the city were not displeasing to you. Of all
Athenians you have been the most constant resident in the city,
which, as you never leave, you may be supposed to love (compare
Phaedr.). For you never went out of the city either to see the
games, except once when you went to the Isthmus, or to any other
place unless when you were on military service; nor did you
travel as other men do. Nor had you any curiosity to know other
states or their laws: your affections did not go beyond us and
our state; we were your especial favourites, and you acquiesced
in our government of you; and here in this city you begat your
children, which is a proof of your satisfaction. Moreover, you
might in the course of the trial, if you had liked, have fixed
the penalty at banishment; the state which refuses to let you go
now would have let you go then. But you pretended that you
preferred death to exile (compare Apol.), and that you were not
unwilling to die. And now you have forgotten these fine
sentiments, and pay no respect to us the laws, of whom you are
the destroyer; and are doing what only a miserable slave would
do, running away and turning your back upon the compacts and
agreements which you made as a citizen. And first of all answer
this very question: Are we right in saying that you agreed to be
governed according to us in deed, and not in word only? Is that
true or not?" How shall we answer, Crito? Must we not
assent?
Crito: We cannot help it, Socrates.
Socrates: Then will they not say: "You, Socrates, are
breaking the covenants and agreements which you made with us at
your leisure, not in any haste or under any compulsion or
deception, but after you have had seventy years to think of them,
during which time you were at liberty to leave the city, if we
were not to your mind, or if our covenants appeared to you to be
unfair. You had your choice, and might have gone either to
Lacedaemon or Crete, both which states are often praised by you
for their good government, or to some other Hellenic or foreign
state. Whereas you, above all other Athenians, seemed to be so
fond of the state, or, in other words, of us her laws (and who
would care about a state which has no laws?), that you never
stirred out of her; the halt, the blind, the maimed, were not
more stationary in her than you were. And now you run away and
forsake your agreements. Not so, Socrates, if you will take our
advice; do not make yourself ridiculous by escaping out of the
city.
"For just consider, if you transgress and err in this
sort of way, what good will you do either to yourself or to your
friends? That your friends will be driven into exile and deprived
of citizenship, or will lose their property, is tolerably
certain; and you yourself, if you fly to one of the neighbouring
cities, as, for example, Thebes or Megara, both of which are well
governed, will come to them as an enemy, Socrates, and their
government will be against you, and all patriotic citizens will
cast an evil eye upon you as a subverter of the laws, and you
will confirm in the minds of the judges the justice of their own
condemnation of you. For he who is a corrupter of the laws is
more than likely to be a corrupter of the young and foolish
portion of mankind. Will you then flee from well-ordered cities
and virtuous men? and is existence worth having on these terms?
Or will you go to them without shame, and talk to them, Socrates?
And what will you say to them? What you say here about virtue and
justice and institutions and laws being the best things among
men? Would that be decent of you? Surely not. But if you go away
from well-governed states to Crito"s friends in Thessaly,
where there is great disorder and licence, they will be charmed
to hear the tale of your escape from prison, set off with
ludicrous particulars of the manner in which you were wrapped in
a goatskin or some other disguise, and metamorphosed as the
manner is of runaways; but will there be no one to remind you
that in your old age you were not ashamed to violate the most
sacred laws from a miserable desire of a little more life?
Perhaps not, if you keep them in a good temper; but if they are
out of temper you will hear many degrading things; you will live,
but how?--as the flatterer of all men, and the servant of all
men; and doing what?--eating and drinking in Thessaly, having
gone abroad in order that you may get a dinner. And where will be
your fine sentiments about justice and virtue? Say that you wish
to live for the sake of your children--you want to bring them up
and educate them--will you take them into Thessaly and deprive
them of Athenian citizenship? Is this the benefit which you will
confer upon them? Or are you under the impression that they will
be better cared for and educated here if you are still alive,
although absent from them; for your friends will take care of
them? Do you fancy that if you are an inhabitant of Thessaly they
will take care of them, and if you are an inhabitant of the other
world that they will not take care of them? Nay; but if they who
call themselves friends are good for anything, they will--to be
sure they will.
"Listen, then, Socrates, to us who have brought you up.
Think not of life and children first, and of justice afterwards,
but of justice first, that you may be justified before the
princes of the world below. For neither will you nor any that
belong to you be happier or holier or juster in this life, or
happier in another, if you do as Crito bids. Now you depart in
innocence, a sufferer and not a doer of evil; a victim, not of
the laws, but of men. But if you go forth, returning evil for
evil, and injury for injury, breaking the covenants and
agreements which you have made with us, and wronging those whom
you ought least of all to wrong, that is to say, yourself, your
friends, your country, and us, we shall be angry with you while
you live, and our brethren, the laws in the world below, will
receive you as an enemy; for they will know that you have done
your best to destroy us. Listen, then, to us and not to Crito."
This, dear Crito, is the voice which I seem to hear murmuring
in my ears, like the sound of the flute in the ears of the
mystic; that voice, I say, is humming in my ears, and prevents me
from hearing any other. And I know that anything more which you
may say will be vain. Yet speak, if you have anything to say.
Crito: I have nothing to say, Socrates.
Socrates: Leave me then, Crito, to fulfil the will of God, and
to follow whither he leads.
-THE END-
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