Jailer Warns Aristotle He Will Have to Drink the Poison Again
2015.03.27 | By Gregory Nagy
§0. In H24H 24§45, I quote and analyze the passage in Plato'due south Phaedo 117a–118a where Socrates dies. His last words, as transmitted by Plato, are directed at all those who have followed Socrates—and who have had the unforgettable experience of engaging in dialogue with him. Calling out to ane of those followers, Crito, who was a native son of the aforementioned neighborhood where Socrates was born, he says to his comrade:don't forget to sacrifice a rooster to Asklepios. I volition quote the whole passage in a infinitesimal. But first, we need to inquire: who is this Asklepios? As I explain in H24H 20§§29–33, he was a hero whose begetter was the god Apollo himself, and, like his divine male parent, Asklepios had special powers of healing. More than that, Asklepios also had the power of bringing the dead dorsum to life. That is why he was killed by the immortals, since mortals must stay mortal. But Asklepios, fifty-fifty after death, retained his power to bring the dead dorsum to life.
§1. So, what does Socrates mean when he asks his followers, in his dying words, non to forget to cede a rooster to Asklepios?
§2. On 16 March 2015, the group participating in the 2015 Harvard Leap Break travel study program visited the site where Socrates died—and where he said what he said about sacrificing a rooster to Asklepios. On the surface, this site is nothing much to write dwelling house nigh. All we can see at the site is the foundation stones of the Land Prison house where Socrates was held prisoner and where he was forced to drink the hemlock in the year 399 BCE. Only I experience deeply that, merely by visiting the site, our grouping managed to connect with a sublime experience. We were making contact with a place linked forever with the very concluding words of 1 of the greatest thinkers in world history.
§3. I now quote my own translation of Plato'south Phaedo 117a–118a, which situates these last words of Socrates:
"Go," said he [= Socrates], "and exercise every bit I say." Crito, when he heard this, signaled with a nod to the male child servant who was standing nearby, and the servant went in, remaining for some fourth dimension, and then came out with the man who was going to administer the poison [pharmakon]. He was carrying a loving cup that independent information technology, ground into the drink. When Socrates saw the homo he said: "You, my good man, since you are experienced in these matters, should tell me what needs to be done." The man answered: "You need to drink it, that's all. And then walk around until y'all experience a heaviness |117b in your legs. Then lie downwardly. This way, the poisonous substance volition do its thing." While the man was saying this, he handed the cup to Socrates. And Socrates took it in a cheerful style, not flinching or getting pale or grimacing. And so looking at the homo from beneath his brows, similar a bull—that was the fashion he used to await at people—he said: "What do you say near my pouring a libation out of this cup to someone? Is information technology immune or not?" The man answered: "What we grind is measured out, Socrates, as the correct dose for drinking." "I understand," he said, |117c "but surely it is allowed and even proper to pray to the gods then that my transfer of dwelling [met-oikēsis] from this world [enthende] to that globe [ekeîse] should be fortunate. And so, that is what I too am now praying for. Let information technology be this style." And, while he was saying this, he took the cup to his lips and, quite readily and cheerfully, he drank downward the whole dose. Up to this point, most of us had been able to control fairly well our urge to let our tears menses; but now when we saw him drinking the toxicant, and and then saw him finish the drink, we could no longer hold back, and, in my case, quite against my own will, my own tears were now pouring out in a flood. So, I covered my face and had a good weep. You see, I was not crying for him, |117d but at the idea of my ain bad fortune in having lost such a comrade [hetairos]. Crito, even earlier me, found himself unable to concur back his tears: then he got up and moved away. And Apollodorus, who had been weeping all along, now started to cry in a loud vocalism, expressing his frustration. So, he made everyone else suspension downwardly and weep—except for Socrates himself. And he said: "What are you lot all doing? I am then surprised at y'all. I had sent away the women mainly because I did non desire them |117e to lose command in this way. You meet, I accept heard that a homo should come up to his finish [teleutân] in a way that calls for measured speaking [euphēmeîn]. So, you must have composure [hēsukhiā], and y'all must endure." When we heard that, we were aback, and held dorsum our tears. He meanwhile was walking around until, as he said, his legs began to become heavy, and then he lay on his dorsum—that is what the man had told him to do. Then that same man who had given him the poison [pharmakon] took hold of him, now and so checking on his feet and legs; and after a while he pressed his foot hard and asked him if he could feel information technology; and he said that he couldn't; and then he pressed his shins, |118a and so on, moving further upward, thus demonstrating for us that he was cold and stiff. So he [= Socrates] took hold of his own feet and legs, maxim that when the poison reaches his middle, and then he will be gone. He was beginning to get cold around the abdomen. Then he uncovered his face, for he had covered himself up, and said— this was the final affair he uttered— "Crito, I owe the sacrifice of a rooster to Asklepios; will y'all pay that debt and not neglect to exercise so?" "I will make it and so," said Crito, "and, tell me, is at that place annihilation else?" When Crito asked this question, no answer came back anymore from Socrates. In a curt while, he stirred. Then the man uncovered his face. His eyes were set in a dead stare. Seeing this, Crito closed his oral fissure and his eyes. Such was the end [teleutē], Echecrates, of our comrade [hetairos]. And we may say almost him that he was in his time the best [aristos] of all men we ever encountered—and the almost intelligent [phronimos] and most simply [dikaios].
So I come dorsum to my question near the meaning of the final words of Socrates, when he says, in his dying words: don't forget to sacrifice a rooster to Asklepios. As I begin to formulate an answer, I must repeat something that I have already highlighted. It is the fact that the hero Asklepios was believed to have special powers of healing—even the power of bringing the dead dorsum to life. Every bit I point out in H24H 24§46, some interpret the final instruction of Socrates to hateful simply that decease is a cure for life. I disagree. After sacrificing a rooster at day'due south stop, sacrificers volition sleep the sleep of incubation and so, the morning after the sacrifice, they will wake up to hear other roosters exultation. So, the words of Socrates hither are referring to rituals of overnight incubation in the hero cults of Asklepios.
§4. On xviii March 2015, the grouping participating in the 2015 Harvard Leap Break travel study plan visited a site where such rituals of overnight incubation actually took place: the site was Epidaurus. This small city was famous for its hero cult of Asklepios. The space that was sacred to Asklepios, every bit our group had a chance to witness, is enormous, and the enormity is a sure sign of the intense veneration received by Asklepios as the hero who, even though he is expressionless, has the superhuman ability to rescue you from death. The mystical logic of worshipping the dead Asklepios is that he died for humanity: he died because he had the ability to bring humans back to life.
§5. So, Asklepios is the model for keeping the voice of the rooster alive. And, for Socrates, Asklepios can go the model for keeping the word alive.
§half dozen. In H24H 24§47, I follow through on analyzing this idea of keeping the give-and-take from dying, of keeping the word alive. That living discussion, I argue, is dialogue. We tin can see it when Socrates says that the only thing worth crying virtually is the decease of the word. I am about to quote some other passage from Plato'due south Phaedo, and again I will employ my own translation. But before I quote the passage, hither is the context: well before Socrates is forced to drink the hemlock, his followers are already mourning his impending death, and Socrates reacts to their sadness by telling them that the merely thing that would be worth mourning is not his expiry but the decease of the chat he started with them. Calling out to i of his followers, Phaedo, Socrates tells him (Plato, Phaedo 89b):
"Tomorrow, Phaedo, you will possibly be cutting off these cute locks of yours [every bit a sign of mourning]?" "Yes, Socrates," I [= Phaedo] replied, "I judge I will." He shot back: "No you lot volition non, if you lot listen to me." "So, what volition I do?" I [= Phaedo] said. He replied: "Non tomorrow but today I will cut off my own hair and you too will cutting off these locks of yours—if our argument [logos] comes to an end [teleutân] for us and we cannot bring it dorsum to life over again [ana-biōsasthai].
What matters for Socrates, every bit I fence in H24H 24§48, is the resurrection of the 'statement' or logos, which means literally 'give-and-take', even if death may be the necessary pharmakon or 'poison' for leaving the everyday life and for entering the everlasting cycle of resurrecting the give-and-take.
§seven. In the 2015 volume Masterpieces of Metonymy (MoM), published both online and in impress, I study in Function One a traditional custom that prevailed in Plato's University at Athens for centuries afterward the death of Socrates. Their custom was to gloat the birthday of Socrates on the sixth twenty-four hour period of the month Thargelion, which by their reckoning coincided with his death day. And they celebrated past engaging in Socratic dialogue, which for them was the logos that was resurrected every time people appoint in Socratic dialogue. I proceed to say in MoM 1§§146–147:
For Plato and for Plato'south Socrates, the word logos refers to the living 'give-and-take' of dialogue in the context of philosophical argumentation. When Socrates in Plato's Phaedo (89b) tells his followers who are mourning his impending death that they should worry non about his death but about the death of the logos—if this logos cannot be resurrected or 'brought back to life' (ana-biōsasthai)—he is speaking of the dialogic argumentation supporting the idea that the psūkhē or 'soul' is immortal. In this context, the logos itself is the 'argument'.
For Plato'due south Socrates, it is less important that his psūkhē or 'soul' must exist immortal, and it is vitally more important that the logos itself must remain immortal—or, at to the lowest degree, that the logos must be brought back to life. And that is considering the logos itself, equally I say, is the 'statement' that comes to life in dialogic argumentation.
Here is the fashion I would sum up, then, what Socrates means as he speaks his concluding words. When the dominicus goes down and you check in for sacred incubation at the precinct of Asklepios, you lot sacrifice a rooster to this hero who, even in death, has the power to bring you lot dorsum to life. As you migrate off to sleep at the place of incubation, the vocalisation of that rooster is no longer heard. He is dead, and you lot are comatose. But then, every bit the lord's day comes upwardly, you wake up to the vox of a new rooster signaling that morning is here, and this voice will be for you lot a sign that says: the word that died has come back to life again. Asklepios has once once more shown his sacred power. The give-and-take is resurrected. The conversation may now continue.
Source: https://classical-inquiries.chs.harvard.edu/the-last-words-of-socrates-at-the-place-where-he-died/
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