Whatever rules of life you have deliberately proposed to yourself, abide by them as laws, and as if it were impious to transgress them; and do not regard what anyone says of you; for this, after all, is no concern of yours. Let whatever appears to you to be the best be to you an inviolable law. Socrates became perfect, improving himself in everything by attending to reason only. And though you be not yet a Socrates, live as one who would become a Socrates.
Upon all occasions we ought to have ready at handthese three maxims:
Conduct me, God, and thou, O Destiny,
Wherever your decrees have fixed my station.
I follow cheerfully. And did I not,
Wicked and wretched, I must follow still.
Whoe'er yields properly to Fate is deemed
Wise among men and knows the laws of heaven.
"O Crito, if it thus pleases the gods, thus let it be. Anytus and Melitus may kill me indeed, but hurt my soul they cannot."
Footnotes
[1.] The deceased speaks constantly as if he were Osiris or some other god. This is supposed to give him the privileges and power of the god whose name he bears.
[2.] The Egyptians thought that in the lower world the heart or conscience was weighed, i.e., judged.
[3.] This chapter and the like are found on stone, wood, porcelain, etc., figures, and attached to the mummy. It was supposed to act magically in transferring the tasks of the underworld from the person.
[4.] The storm-god, the arch-fiend of Ra, the sun-god