Crito | Page 4

there for seventy years more constantly than any other
citizen.' Thus he has clearly shown that he acknowledged the
agreement, which he cannot now break without dishonour to himself
and danger to his friends. Even in the course of the trial he might have
proposed exile as the penalty, but then he declared that he preferred
death to exile. And whither will he direct his footsteps? In any
well-ordered state the Laws will consider him as an enemy. Possibly in
a land of misrule like Thessaly he may be welcomed at first, and the
unseemly narrative of his escape will be regarded by the inhabitants as
an amusing tale. But if he offends them he will have to learn another
sort of lesson. Will he continue to give lectures in virtue? That would
hardly be decent. And how will his children be the gainers if he takes
them into Thessaly, and deprives them of Athenian citizenship? Or if
he leaves them behind, does he expect that they will be better taken
care of by his friends because he is in Thessaly? Will not true friends
care for them equally whether he is alive or dead?
Finally, they exhort him to think of justice first, and of life and children
afterwards. He may now depart in peace and innocence, a sufferer and
not a doer of evil. But if he breaks agreements, and returns evil for evil,
they will be angry with him while he lives; and their brethren the Laws

of the world below will receive him as an enemy. Such is the mystic
voice which is always murmuring in his ears.
That Socrates was not a good citizen was a charge made against him
during his lifetime, which has been often repeated in later ages. The
crimes of Alcibiades, Critias, and Charmides, who had been his pupils,
were still recent in the memory of the now restored democracy. The
fact that he had been neutral in the death-struggle of Athens was not
likely to conciliate popular good-will. Plato, writing probably in the
next generation, undertakes the defence of his friend and master in this
particular, not to the Athenians of his day, but to posterity and the
world at large.
Whether such an incident ever really occurred as the visit of Crito and
the proposal of escape is uncertain: Plato could easily have invented far
more than that (Phaedr.); and in the selection of Crito, the aged friend,
as the fittest person to make the proposal to Socrates, we seem to
recognize the hand of the artist. Whether any one who has been
subjected by the laws of his country to an unjust judgment is right in
attempting to escape, is a thesis about which casuists might disagree.
Shelley (Prose Works) is of opinion that Socrates 'did well to die,' but
not for the 'sophistical' reasons which Plato has put into his mouth. And
there would be no difficulty in arguing that Socrates should have lived
and preferred to a glorious death the good which he might still be able
to perform. 'A rhetorician would have had much to say upon that point.'
It may be observed however that Plato never intended to answer the
question of casuistry, but only to exhibit the ideal of patient virtue
which refuses to do the least evil in order to avoid the greatest, and to
show his master maintaining in death the opinions which he had
professed in his life. Not 'the world,' but the 'one wise man,' is still the
paradox of Socrates in his last hours. He must be guided by reason,
although her conclusions may be fatal to him. The remarkable
sentiment that the wicked can do neither good nor evil is true, if taken
in the sense, which he means, of moral evil; in his own words, 'they
cannot make a man wise or foolish.'
This little dialogue is a perfect piece of dialectic, in which granting the
'common principle,' there is no escaping from the conclusion. It is
anticipated at the beginning by the dream of Socrates and the parody of
Homer. The personification of the Laws, and of their brethren the Laws

in the world below, is one of the noblest and boldest figures of speech
which occur in Plato.
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