A Life of Socrates by Dr. G. Wiggers [pp. 236-265]

Life of Socrates.
been removed early in the morning, and the day passed off in
easy and serious conversation with his friends, till the shadows
of the mountains began to stretch far over the valleys. At last
Socrates said, "Now destiny summons me, as a tragic writer
would say, and it is nearly time for me to betake myself to the
bath; for it appears to me to be better to drink the poison after
I have bathed myself, and not to trouble the women with washing my dead body." When he had thus spoken, Crito said,
"So be it, Socrates, but what commands have you to give to
these or to me, either respecting your children, or any other
matter, in attending to which we can most oblige you?" He
replied, "What I always say, Crito, nothing new: that by
taking care of yourselves you will oblige both me and mine, and
yourselves, whatever you do, though you should not now promise
it; but if you neglect yourselves, and will not live as it were
in the footsteps of what has been now and formerly said, even
though you should promise much at present, and that earnestly,
you will do no good at all." "We will endeavour then so to
do," said Crito; "but how shall we bury you?" "Just as you
please," said Socrates, "if only you can catch me, and I do not
escape from you." And at the same time smiling gently, says
Plato, and looking round on us he said: "I cannot persuade
Crito, my friends, that I am that Socrates who is now conversing with you, and who methodizes each part of the discourse;
but he thinks that I am he whom he will shortly behold dead,
and asks how he should bury me. But that which I some time
since argued at length, that when I have drunk the poison I
shall no longer remain with you, but shall depart to some happy
state of the blessed; this I seem to have urged to him in vain,
though I meant to console both you and myself. 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. For be well assured," he said, "most excellent Crito,
that to speak improperly is not only culpable as to the thing
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