Phaedo

“I had a singular feeling at being in his company. For I could hardly believe that I was present at the death of a friend, and therefore I did not pity him, Echecrates; he died so fearlessly, and his words and bearing were so noble and gracious, that to me he appeared blessed. I thought that in going to the other world he could not be without a divine call, and that he would be happy, if any man ever was, when he arrived there, and therefore I did not pity him as might have seemed natural at such an hour.” 

Phaedo, visiting Socrates on the day of the philosopher’s execution, cannot feel happy about the circumstances, but Socrates’s serenity in the face of death takes much of the pain out of the occasion. The philosopher believes that the wise should not shy away from death, as it is less an imposition than a likely improvement over their condition as flawed humans.

“How singular is the thing called pleasure, and how curiously related to pain, which might be thought to be the opposite of it; for they are never present to a man at the same instant, and yet he who pursues either is generally compelled to take the other; their bodies are two, but they are joined by a single head.”

Socrates begins the last day’s lesson by contemplating the mutuality of opposites and the futility of chasing after pleasure—especially since pain is always required to instigate it. The more people search for the one, the more of its opposite they get.

“For the body is a source of endless trouble to us by reason of the mere requirement of food; and is liable also to diseases which overtake and impede us in the search after true being: it fills us full of loves, and lusts, and fears, and fancies of all kinds, and endless foolery, and in fact, as men say, takes away from us the power of thinking at all.” 

If the body hinders the philosopher with its yearnings and inaccurate senses, then death isn’t to be feared but anticipated, since in that realm the soul will be able to perceive the essence of reality without the obscuring presence of physical necessity.