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Updated: June 23, 2025
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.
Crito bribed the jailor; but Socrates would not go out by treachery. "Whatever inconvenience ensue, nothing is to be preferred before justice. These things I hear like pipes and drums, whose sound makes me deaf to everything you say." The fame of this prison, the fame of the discourses there, and the drinking of the hemlock, are one of the most precious passages in the history of the world.
"In any way that you like; only you must get hold of me, and take care that I do not walk away from you." Then he turned to us, and added with a smile: "I can not make Crito believe that I am the same Socrates who has been talking and conducting the argument; he fancies that I am the other Socrates whom he will soon see a dead body and he asks, How shall he bury me?
Socrates said: "Yes, Crito, and they of whom you speak are right in doing thus, for they think that they will gain by the delay; but I am right in not doing thus, for I do not think that I should gain anything by drinking the poison a little later; I should be sparing and saving a life which is already gone; I could only laugh at myself for this. Please then to do as I say, and not to refuse me."
These two points, however, are so closely interwoven with each other, that the general principle appears only to be illustrated by the example of Socrates. Crito was one of those friends of Socrates who had been present at his trial, and had offered to assist in paying a fine, had a fine been imposed instead of the sentence of death.
During those sad days Xenophon, the general, a pupil of Socrates, was marching with his Ten Thousand in a distant land, amid dangers, seeking a way of return to his beloved fatherland. Æschines, Crito, Critobulus, Phædo, and Apollodorus were now occupied with the preparations for the modest funeral.
Crito has no answer to make to this argument, and Socrates thereupon decides to submit to his fate. Plato is said to have had two objects in writing this dialogue: First, to acquit Socrates of the charge of corrupting the Athenian youth; and, second, to establish the fact that it is necessary under all circumstances to submit to the established laws of his country.
Be ye then my sureties to Crito," he said, "in an obligation contrary to that which he made to the judges; for he undertook that I should remain; but do you be sureties that, when I die, I shall not remain, but shall depart, that Crito may more easily bear it, and when he sees my body either burnt or buried, may not be afflicted for me, as if I suffered some dreadful thing, nor say at my interment that Socrates is laid out, or is carried out, or is buried.
Socrates thereupon, having promised to follow the advice of Crito if, after the matter had been fully discussed, it should appear to be right to do so, proposes to consider the duty of a citizen toward his country; and having established the divine principle that it is wrong to return evil for evil, goes on to show that the obligations of a citizen to his country are even more binding than those of a child to its parent, or a slave to his master, and that therefore it is his duty to obey the established laws, at whatever cost to himself.
Then turning to us, he said, How charming the man is: since I have been in prison he has always been coming to see me, and at times he would talk to me, and was as good to me as could be, and now see how generously he sorrows on my account. We must do as he says, Crito; and therefore let the cup be brought, if the poison is prepared: if not, let the attendant prepare some.
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