10/1/2007 - Philosophy - Plato's 'Phaedo'
‘When Socrates heard this he laughed gently and said, ‘I am surprised at you, Simmias. I shall certainly find it difficult to convince the outside world that I do not regard my present lot as a misfortune if I cannot even convince you, and you are afraid that I am more irritable now than I used to be. Evidently you think that I have less insight into the future than a swan; because when these birds feel that the time has come for them to die, they sing more loudly and sweetly than they have sung in all their lives before, for joy that they are going away into the presence of the god whose servants they are. It is quite wrong for human beings to make out that the swans sing their last song as an expression of grief at their approaching end; people who say this are misled by their own fear of death, and fail to reflect that no bird sings when it is hungry or cold or distressed in any other way; not even the nightingale or swallow or hoopoe, whose songs are supposed to be a lament. In my opinion neither they nor the swans sing because they are sad. I believe that the swans, belonging as they do to Apollo, have prophetic powers and sing because they know the good things that await them in the unseen world; and they are happier on that day than they have been ever before. Now I consider that I am in the same service as the swans, and dedicated to the same god; and that I am no worse endowed with prophetic powers by my master than they are, and no more disconsolate at leaving this life. So far as that fear of yours is concerned, you may say and ask whatever you like, for as long as the eleven officers of the Athenians permit.’
Plato: The last days of Socrates, Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, Phaedo. Penguin Classics, p. 144. (Pheado)
Socrates’ words on the swan-song prior to his own death are amongst the most beautiful texts about death and dying that I know. It has been some years since I last read the Phaedo, but when I found this Penguin Classics edition yesterday in Elizabeth’s Bookstore, Newtown, I decided straight away to buy it. Always nice to have both the Dutch and English translations of such major texts in ancient philosophy.
The first thing I looked up was the swan song passage. My first acquaintance with this text was years ago when I read these words at the funeral of a friend, who had chosen this text to be read during this occasion. Shortly afterwards, I read the complete Euthyphro, Apology, Crito and Phaedo; the fate of Socrates, the first true philosopher in Western history. He was sentenced to death on charges of ‘impiety and corrupting young minds’. He accepted his fate and in Crito he counters the arguments of friends urging him to escape.
The Phaedo reads like a gospel. The work is focused on the soul that disengages itself from the body, for the true philosopher not a moment to deplore but rather a moment to rejoice, as it means that the final stage of the soul’s journey has arrived. He therefore compares himself with the swans, fellow-servants of Apollo, god of prophecy. In that way this work reminds me of Montaigne’s essay To philosophize is to learn how to die (see entry 15/11/2006).
A gospel or not, religious or not, this work that is amongst the most famous texts Plato has written, is in itself a classic work the reader can enjoy just for the beauty of its words.
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