If, then, you are considering some other
subject, I have nothing to say; but if you are doubting about this, do
not hesitate both yourselves to speak and express your opinion, if it
appears to you in any respect that it might have been argued better, and
to call me in again to your assistance, if you think you can be at all
benefited by my help."

Upon this Simmias said, "Indeed, Socrates, I will tell you the truth:
for some time each of us, being in doubt, has been urging and exhorting
the other to question you, from a desire to hear our doubts solved; but
we were afraid of giving you trouble, lest it should be disagreeable to
you in your present circumstances."

77. But he, upon hearing this, gently smiled, and said, "Bless me,
Simmias; with difficulty, indeed, could I persuade other men that I do
not consider my present condition a calamity, since I am not able to
persuade even you; but you are afraid lest I should be more morose now
than during the former part of my life. And, as it seems, I appear to
you to be inferior to swans with respect to divination, who, when they
perceive that they must needs die, though they have been used to sing
before, sing then more than ever, rejoicing that they are about to
depart to that deity whose servants they are. But men, through their
own fear of death, belie the swans too, and say that they, lamenting
their death, sing their last song through grief; and they do not
consider that no bird sings when it is hungry or cold, or is afflicted
with any other pain, not even the nightingale, or swallow, or the
hoopoes, which, they say, sing lamenting through grief. But neither do
these birds appear to me to sing through sorrow, nor yet do swans; but,
in my opinion, belonging to Apollo, they are prophetic, and, foreseeing
the blessings of Hades, they sing and rejoice on that day more
excellently than at any preceding time. 78. But I, too, consider myself
to be a fellow-servant of the swans, and sacred to the same god; and
that I have received the power of divination from our common master no
less than they, and that I do not depart from this life with less
spirits than they. On this account, therefore, it is right that you
should both speak and ask whatever you please, so long as the Athenian
Eleven permit."

"You say well," said Simmias, "and both I will tell you what are my
doubts, and he, in turn, how far he does not assent to what has been
said. For it appears to me, Socrates, pro