'Chance' and its cognate verb occur together at 58a6 and perhaps mean more than mere coincidence. They may contain a hint of supernatural intervention. Cf.58e5— 6 and see Loriaux, 17, 38—9.
59al—b4. Phaedo's account of the 'strange mixture of pleasure and pain' (a5—7) he felt at Socrates' death has sometimes been felt to conflict with the latter's statement at 60b6 that pleasure and pain will not visit a man together. There is, in fact, no reason why a speaker in the prologue should not be contradicted by a different speaker in the narrated dialogue. However, Socrates' words need not be taken to conflict with what is said here, since he may be denying not that pleasure and pain can coexist, but only that they can 'arise' at the same time. See on 60b 1— c7.
59b5—c4. Plato is mentioned by name only three times in the dialogues: twice in the Apology> (34al, 38b6) his presence at Socrates' trial is noted; here it is recorded that he was absent at Socrates' death. Thus, although Phaedo's account of the death scene is marked as first hand (57al—4), Plato indicates that he did not witness it himself. For the other persons named here, see Hackforth, 30-1.
2. SOCRATES IN PRISON (59c8—69e5)
Socrates' friends visit and converse with him in prison. This section forms a prelude to the main discussion.
2.1 Opening Conversation (59c8—63e7)
The conversation soon leads to a discussion of suicide. Here an apparent contradiction develops: the true philosopher should welcome death, yet he may not kill himself. The paradox is not resolved by supposing that men are possessions of the gods.
59e6-60al. 'The Eleven are releasing Socrates' (e6): 'the Eleven' were the Athenian prison authorities responsible for state executions. Cf.85b9 and 116b8. The release of Socrates from his chains (al) prefigures the release of his soul from its bodily prison. The notion of death as a 'release' occurs often. See note 1, and cf.65al, 67a6, 67dl—10,82el—83a3,83dl-2, 84a2-5.
60bl-c7. 'Its supposed opposite, "painful"' (b4—5): this translation assumes that the phrase 'the painful' indicates reference to the word 'painful', making it parallel to 'this state that men call "pleasant"' (60b4). Socrates may be hinting that so-called 'pleasant' things are miscalled, though he does not speak analogously of 'so- called pains'. His reflections on pleasure and pain are sometimes held to contain the germ of the theory, developed at length in the Republic (583b-585a), Timaeus (64c, ff.), and Philebus (31d-32b), that many so-called 'pleasures' of the body are no more than relief from pain, and are therefore in some sense 'false'. Cf. the 'so-called pleasures' of 64d3, and the related, although logically distinct, doctrine of 83c5—e3.
Several questions arise: (1) Are pleasure and pain 'opposites'? (2) In what sense can they not visit at the same time? (3) Why are they nevertheless held to be inseparably connected?
(1) The opposition between pleasure and pain is expressed only in non-committal terms: the painful is referred to as 'the supposed opposite' of pleasant. On this point the Phaedo's position falls between those of the Gorgias and the Republic. In the Gorgias (495e-497d) it is not said that pleasure and pain are opposites, and it may even be implied (495e6—7) that they are not. In the Republic (583c3—4) it is firmly asserted that they are. The present remarks are sometimes held to prepare for the treatment of opposites that lies ahead (70d—72e, 102b-106e). However, pleasure and pain are noticeably absent from the opposites mentioned later, and the law that opposites come to be from opposites (70e—71a) cannot be plausibly applied to them—see (3) below.
Does Socrates mean merely (a) that pleasure and pain cannot 'arise' at the same time, or (b) that they cannot coexist in a single subject at all? (b) would indeed follow from the doctrine that pleasure and pain are opposites, combined with the principle that no pair of opposites can belong to a given subject in the same respect at the same time (.Republic 436b). However, this principle is not expressly stated in the Phaedo. Moreover, the view that pleasure and pain cannot coexist in a single subject would run counter to the case of Phaedo's mingled pleasure and pain in face of Socrates' death (59a). (a), on the other hand, would be well supported by the case of Socrates' leg. The pain caused by the fetter would have to have preceded the pleasure felt upon its removal. More generally, the pleasure of relief must depend upon antecedent pain. Even though pleasure and pain may coexist, it remains true that they cannot 'arise' at the same time.
The alleged inseparability of pleasure from pain seems a curious moral for Socrates to draw from the state of his leg. Neither possible application of it fits the example.
To say that anyone who pursues and catches pain is virtually bound to catch pleasure would be neither relevant nor true. Pain is not a normal object of pursuit at all, and Socrates did not, of course, 'pursue' the pain in his leg. Nor is pain bound to be followed by pleasure: the pleasure Socrates now feels is not a necessary sequel to the pain, but contingent upon the removal of the fetter. It is true that the pleasure of relief depends upon antecedent pain; and from such texts as Republic 583cl0—d 11 it is tempting to interpret Socrates similarly here. However, on a strict reading he seems committed to the quite different, and less defensible, proposition that pain must generally be succeeded by pleasure.
The more plausible application would be that anyone who pursues and catches pleasure is virtually bound to catch pain. This avoids some of the difficulties of (a), but is also objectionable. It does not fit the present example, since Socrates is not pursuing pleasure. Moreover, the suggestion would have to be, once again, not merely that the pleasure in his leg depended upon a previous pain, but that such pleasure must nearly always be followed by pain. Yet there is no likelihood that the pleasure he now feels in his leg will be followed by pain. Pleasure and pain are not experienced in continuous alternation. This will be recognized in the Republic, where a distinction is drawn between pleasure and pain, and a state of 'rest', which is neither pleasant nor painful. The mere absence of one opposite, it is there argued, is not to be mistaken for the presence of the other (584a4—6).
See, further, E. R. Dodds, ed. Gorgias 495e2-497d8.
60c8-61cl. The translation 'putting into verse' has been adopted at 60dl rather than 'setting to music' (Burnet). Verses are nowhere expressly mentioned, but Socrates' words at 61b3-4 suggest that he made poetry out of Aesop's tales rather than 'music' in the modern sense. This would be consistent with the command of his dream to 'make art and practise it'. 'Art' has been used for the Greek word from which 'music' is derived, which means 'activity presided over by the Muses'. See Hackforth, 37.
Socrates' denial that he is a 'teller of tales' (61b5) is rather oddly belied by 60c 1—5. At 61e2 he will propose to 'inquire and speculate' regarding the afterlife. The word translated 'speculate' means, literally, 'tell tales'. The phrase expresses the spirit of the whole dialogue, argument and tale-telling being interwoven throughout. Cf.70b6 and see note 15.
The translation 'dream' has been used at 60e2-6 lb 1, despite the oddity in English of saying that a dream, as distinct from a dream- figure, speaks, gives orders, and is obeyed. The Greeks did not distinguish sharply between the content of a dream and the dream itself. When, as often, the dream-figure is a human being or a god, the dream itself can be credited with the words or actions that a real agent might utter or perform.