“‘Why all this,’ he said, ‘my dear friends? I sent the women away for this very reason, that they might not vex us in this fashion. I have heard it said that a man ought to die with good words in his ears. Be quiet, I beseech, and bear yourselves like men.’
“When we heard this we were not a little ashamed of ourselves, and kept back our tears. He walked about till he felt the weight in his legs, and then lay down on his back—this was what the man bade him do. Then the man who administered the poison squeezed his foot pretty strongly, and asked him whether he felt anything. He said no. Then the man showed us how the numbness was going higher and higher.
“‘When it reaches his heart,’ he said, ‘he will die.’
“When the groin was cold the Master uncovered his face—for he had covered it before—and said, ‘Crito, we owe a cock to Æsculapius; pay it, do not forget.’
“These were the last words he said.
“‘I will,’ said Crito, ‘is there anything more?’
“But he made no answer. A little time after, we saw him move. Then the man uncovered the face, and we saw that his eyes were set. Then Crito closed his mouth and his eyes.”
Phaedo left the room hastily when he had finished his narrative. For some time there was silence. Then Apollodorus spoke.
“You know, my friends,” he said, “that I am not very wise nor at all learned; but he bore with me and my foolishness, and you will also because you know I loved him. Let me say then one thing. Much that Socrates said that day I did not understand, nor do I understand it now when I hear it again. Yet no one could be more fully persuaded than I was that he spoke the truth. And what persuaded me was the sight of the man. So brave was he, so cheerful, so wholly convinced in his own mind, that no one could doubt that he was indeed about to depart to a better place.”