es, if he have that defence, which as you have
often acknowledged he should have--if he be his own defence, and have
never said or done anything wrong, either in respect of gods or men;
and this has been repeatedly acknowledged by us to be the best sort of
defence. And if any one could convict me of inability to defend myself
or others after this sort, I should blush for shame, whether I was
convicted before many, or before a few, or by myself alone; and if I
died from want of ability to do so, that would indeed grieve me. But if
I died because I have no powers of flattery or rhetoric, I am very sure
that you would not find me repining at death. For no man who is not an
utter fool and coward is afraid of death itself, but he is afraid of
doing wrong. For to go to the world below having one's soul full of
injustice is the last and worst of all evils. And in proof of what I
say, if you have no objection, I should like to tell you a story.

CALLICLES: Very well, proceed; and then we shall have done.

SOCRATES: Listen, then, as story-tellers say, to a very pretty tale,
which I dare say that you may be disposed to regard as a fable only,
but which, as I believe, is a true tale, for I mean to speak the truth.
Homer tells us (Il.), how Zeus and Poseidon and Pluto divided the empire
which they inherited from their father. Now in the days of Cronos there
existed a law respecting the destiny of man, which has always been, and
still continues to be in Heaven,--that he who has lived all his life in
justice and holiness shall go, when he is dead, to the Islands of the
Blessed, and dwell there in perfect happiness out of the reach of evil;
but that he who has lived unjustly and impiously shall go to the house
of vengeance and punishment, which is called Tartarus. And in the time
of Cronos, and even quite lately in the reign of Zeus, the judgment
was given on the very day on which the men were to die; the judges
were alive, and the men were alive; and the consequence was that the
judgments were not well given. Then Pluto and the authorities from the
Islands of the Blessed came to Zeus, and said that the souls found their
way to the wrong places. Zeus said: 'I shall put a stop to this; the
judgments are not well given, because the persons who are judged have
their clothes on, for they are alive; and there are many who, having
evil souls, are apparelled in fair bodies, or encased in wealth or rank,
and, when the day of judgment arrives,