Strange, do you call it, that to God it should seem better for me to die at once? Do you not know that up to this moment I will not concede to any man to have lived a better life than I have; since what can exceed the pleasure, which has been mine, of knowing that my whole life has been spent holily and justly? ... And now if my age is still to be prolonged, I know that I cannot escape paying the penalty of old age, in increasing dimness of sight and dulness of hearing. I shall find myself slower to learn new lessons, and apter to forget the lessons I have learnt.
신들께서 보기에 내가 곧 죽는 게 낫다고 하는 게 이상하다 하느냐? 내 지금까지 다른 누구도 나보다 나은 삶을 살았노라고 인정하지 않는다는 걸 알지 않느냐? 내 인생을 지금껏 성스럽고 올바르게 살아 왔음을 아는 것으로부터의 기쁨보다 더한 기쁨이 어디 있겠느냐? ... 그리고 이제 내 삶이 이대로 계속된다면 눈이 침침해지고 귀가 멀어가는 나이의 응보를 피할 수 없음을 잘 알고 있다. 앞으로는 새로운 교훈을 배우기도 힘들어질 것이고 이미 배운 것도 쉽게 잊게 될 것이다.
And when he perceived those who followed by his side in tears, "What is this?" he asked. "Why do you weep now? Do you not know that for many a long day, ever since I was born, sentence of death was passed upon me by nature? If so be I perish prematurely while the tide of life's blessings flows free and fast, certainly I and my well-wishers should feel pained; but if it be that I am bringing my life to a close on the eve of troubles, for my part I think you ought all of you to take heart of grace and rejoice in my good fortune."
그리고 소크라테스는 눈물을 흘리며 그를 따르는 사람들을 보자 이와 같이 말하였다. "이게 무슨 짓인가? 왜들 눈물을 흘리는가? 오래 전에 태어나는 순간 나 역시 자연에 의해 죽을 운명을 선고받았음을 모른단 말인가? 내가 축복된 삶의 흐름 한복판에서 갑자기 때이른 죽음을 맞이했다면 나나 내 친우들 모두 아픔을 느끼게 되리라. 그러나 내 삶이 끝나가고 이 모든 문제가 거의 끝나가는 마당에 그대들 모두 기쁜 마음으로 내 행운을 축복해 줘야 하지 않겠는가."
He exclaimed very innocently, "But the hardest thing of all to bear, Socrates, is to see you put to death unjustly." Whereupon Socrates, it is said, gently stroked the young man's head: "Would you have been better pleased, my dear one, to see me put to death for some just reason rather than unjustly?" and as he spoke he smiled tenderly.
아폴로도로스는 순진하게도 이와 같이 말하였다. "그러나 소크라테스, 그대가 정당하지 못하게 사형에 처해지는 것을 차마 보기가 괴롭습니다." 그러자 소크라테스는 젊은이의 머리를 부드럽게 치며 다음과 같이 말했다고 한다. "그래 이 친구야, 그러면 내가 정당하게 사형에 처해지는 걸 보는 쪽이 그대에게 더 기쁠 뻔 했다는 건가?" 소크라테스는 그렇게 말하며 빙그레 웃었다.
-- Xenophon, The Apology of Socrates
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크세노폰의 소크라테스도 사형 판결 앞에 두려워하지 않기는 마찬가지이되, 그 이유는 플라톤이 《파이돈》에서 그리는 소크라테스와는 전혀 다르군요. 거의 스토아적이라고 불릴 만한 소크라테스. --
Kaff
In the Platonic corpus edited by Thrasyllus, Euthyphro is the first dialogue that opens the whole work. Its main question is the nature of piety. At the end, Euthyphro cannot stand Socrates anymore and runs away, but there is still something that can be said on behalf of him. To Euthyphro, piety lies in the just relationship between humans and gods - in a sort of "trade", using Socrates' word. The question turns into a different direction - how may the humans be friends to gods? We're mortals, they're immortals, they may not give a damn. They can benefit us be it their will, but how can we reciprocate this? At this point, the question is no more the definition of piety, but what really constitutes this piety: in other words, the nature of this relationship. The full answer is not given here, however: one should browse through the corpus all the way to the Republic.
Plato's
Apology does not really portrait the scene as it was, although it claims to be a verbatim transcription of Socrates' defence speech - there is no contextual backdrop or acknowledgement of the source, as it is usual in Plato's dialogues. (All other Platonic "dialogues" in speech forms -
Menexenus, Clitophon, Critias and
Timaeus include some background information how this speech came to be.) Xenophon was not present in the trial, and his version of
Apology relies on an informer, Hermogenes. (The same Hermogenes in Xenophon's
Symposium and Plato's
Cratylus. Certainly a very important Socratic, well known for his noble birth, poverty, and piety. To those who accuse Socrates for corrupting the young, it is said that one only had to point Hermogenes as a counter-proof.) This account gives a much more chaotic scene at the court, where Socrates is continuously interrupted, compared to the well-ordered jury in Plato's version. Xenophon's version gives a more lively and realistic scene, but he wasn't there. Plato's version is, well, rather
platonic but he was there. What is certain, however, is that neither
Apologys are historical accounts.
Crito, the main interlocutor of the dialogue which bears his namestake, he also makes appearance in Euthydemus. He is a peer of Socrates in his age, and although not a speculative thinker himself, he has a sound Greek sensibility. In Euthydemus there are two sophist young brothers in town, whose command of language is amusingly masterful: they play on words to contradict each other, leaving the disciples perplexed. Amazingly, Socrates wants to enroll as their student, and persuades Crito to do so as well, and even Crito sees that these brothers are not wise. As a man of sound common sense, he reasonably persuades Socrates to escape from the prison: this was commonly done, and he adheres to the customs ("ethics"). Socrates presents a shocking view on this, an unchanging true standard of morality. (Hegel later revives this distinction. Socratic Moralität and Crito's Sittlichkeit.) This is disturbing, if each individual is held responsible for all moral decisions, Socrates is not very different from Protagoras and other sophists. (Indeed, Aristophanes portrayed him as such.) Plato later tries to steer the middle route between the two attitudes, that of individual moral responsibility taken to the extreme and total confirmation to the social custosm.
To me, Phaedo appears to be Plato's own result of mourning-liberation. It is grouped with Euthyphro, Apology and Crito in the first tetralogy of the Thrasyllan corpus of Plato's writings because of the internal chronological and thematic relationshps, but in fact it is much later and Platonic than the other three, especially concerning his doctrine of the immortality of the Soul/Life. Why is Plato shoveling his own doctrines into his master's mouth? At the most basic level, it would have made Plato easier to accept the fact. The immortality of Soul was doubtlessly Plato's idea, but he wants to attribute it to Socrates - this is especially so in considering Parmenides where young Socrates, still in teens, meets the old Parmenides and presents a premature version of Theory of Forms. Had Socrates shared the same belief, much easier for Plato to accept his death. It should be noted that Plato explicitly mentions that he himself was not present in the event of Phaedo. It might have been true that Plato himself simply could not bear watching Socrates dying (and thus ill) but this also gives an apology on behalf of Plato that the contents of the discussion may not entirely be correct. -- Kaff
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