Phaedo

Summary

echecrates: Were you with Socrates yourself, Phaedo, on the day he drank the poison in prison, or did you hear about it from someone else?

phaedo: I was there myself, Echecrates.

echecrates: So what did he say before his death? And how did he meet his end? I'd enjoy hearing about it, you see. For, as a matter of fact, scarcely any citizens of Phlius visit Athens these days, and no foreigner who could give us a clear report about it has come from there for a long time. Other than that he died from drinking poison, that is. They couldn't tell us anything else.

phaedo: So haven't you even found out how the trial went?

echecrates: Yes, someone did give us a report about that, and we really were surprised that evidently he died long after it had finished. So why was that, Phaedo?

phaedo: It was a matter of chance, Echecrates, in his case. For by chance on the day before his trial the stern of the ship the Athenians send to Delos had been wreathed.

echecrates: What ship is that?

phaedo: It's the ship in which, according to the Athenians, Theseus once set out to Crete with the famous ‘twice seven’, and both saved their lives and escaped with his own. Anyway, as the story goes, at that time they had vowed to Apollo that if they were saved, in return they would send an embassy to Delos every year.