What
are you doing, my admirable friends? I, indeed, for this reason chiefly,
sent away the women, that they might not commit any folly of this kind.
For I have heard that it is right to die with good omens. Be quiet,
therefore, and bear up."

When we heard this, we were ashamed, and restrained our tears. But he,
having walked about, when he said that his legs were growing heavy, lay
down on his back; for the man had so directed him. And, at the same
time, he who gave the poison taking hold of him, after a short interval,
examined his feet and legs; and then, having pressed his foot hard, he
asked if he felt it: he said that he did not. And after this he pressed
his thighs; and, thus going higher, he showed us that he was growing
cold and stiff. Then Socrates touched himself, and said that when the
poison reached his heart he should then depart. 155. But now the parts
around the lower belly were almost cold; when, uncovering himself, for
he had been covered over, he said (and they were his last words),
"Crito, we owe a cock to Aesculapius; pay it, therefore; and do not
neglect it."

"It shall be done," said Crito; "but consider whether you have any thing
else to say."

To this question he gave no reply; but, shortly after, he gave a
convulsive movement, and the man covered him, and his eyes were fixed;
and Crito, perceiving it, closed his mouth and eyes.

This, Echecrates, was the end of our friend,--a man, as we may say, the
best of all of his time that we have known, and, moreover, the most wise
and just.

FOOTNOTES

[25] Phlius, to which Echecrates belonged, was a town of Sicyonia, in
Peloponnesus.

[26] A Pythagorean of Crotona.

[27] Namely, "that it is better to die than to live."

[28] Hitto, Boetian for hioto.

[29] Of Pythagoras.

[30] Some boyish spirit.

[31] That is, at a time of life when the body is in full vigor.

[32] In the original there is a play on the words Haides and
haeides, which I can only attempt to retain by departing from
the usual rendering of the former word.

[33] By this I understand him to mean that the soul alone can perceive
the truth, but the senses, as they are different, receive and convey
different impressions of the same thing; thus, the eye receives one
impression of an object, the ear a totally different one.

[34] kai ahythis eteros kai eteros, that is, "with one argument
after another" Though Cousin transla