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哲学的故事04(金发燊译本)

 ENDOVIP 2020-02-22

03 II. Socrates

二苏格拉底

If we may judge from the bust that has come down to us as part of the ruins of ancient sculpture, Socrates was as far from being handsome as even a philosopher can be. A bald head, a great round face, deep-set staring eyes, a broad and flowery nose that gave vivid testimony to many a Symposium—it was rather the head of a porter than that of the most famous of philosophers. But if we look again we see, through the crudity of the stone, something of that human kindliness and unassuming simplicity which made this homely thinker a teacher beloved of the finest youths in Athens. We know so little about him, and yet we know him so much more intimately than the aristocratic Plato or the reserved and scholarly Aristotle. Across two thousand three hundred years we can yet see his ungainly figure, clad always in the same rumpled tunic, walking leisurely through the agora, undisturbed by the bedlam of politics, buttonholing his prey, gathering the young and the learned about him, luring them into some shady nook of the temple porticos, and asking them to define their terms.

如果我们可以从相传下来作为古代雕刻残骸部分的那个半身像来进行判断,那末苏格拉底就远不是一个哲学家所应该有的那样英俊漂亮。秃顶、大扁脸、突眼睛、朝天鼻,这些都生动地证实了许多次宴会后高谈阔论的人们所见到的——这与其说是最有名的哲学家的头像,倒不如说是一个搬运工的头像。但是如果我们再看一下的话,透过石头的粗糙我们见出,有某种和蔼可亲、平易近人的东西使这位其貌不扬的思想家成为受雅典最优秀的青年所爱戴的导师。我们对他知道的并不多,但是比起贵族气派的柏拉图和谨慎持重、学者派头的亚里士多德来,我们知道他要和蔼可亲得多。经过两千三百年我们依然可以看见他那不雅观的体态,总是穿着件皱折不平的宽大外袍,悠闲地穿过古希腊的人民大会,不受政治喧嚣的骚扰,强留人谈话,将年轻有学问的人都聚集到他的周围,将他们领进殿堂柱廊上某些遮阴的僻角,请他们给他们的用语下定义。

They were a motley crowd, these youths who flocked about him and helped him to create European philosophy. There were rich young men like Plato and Alcibiades, who relished his satirical analysis of Athenian democracy; there were socialists like Antisthenes, who liked the master’s careless poverty, and made a religion of it; there was even an anarchist or two among them, like Aristippus, who aspired to a world in which there would be neither masters nor slaves, and all would be as worrilessly free as Socrates. All the problems that agitate human society to-day, and provide the material of youth’s endless debate, agitated as well that little band of thinkers and talkers, who felt, with their teacher, that life without discourse would be unworthy of a man. Every school of social thought had there its representative, and perhaps its origin.

那些聚集在他周围,帮他创立了欧洲哲学的青年是各式各样的一群人。有像柏拉图和亚西比德那样的富裕青年,津津乐道他对雅典的民主政治的讽刺性分析;有像安提西尼那样的社会主义者,喜爱并崇拜他的安贫乐道精神;甚至还有一两个像亚里士蒂帕斯那样的无政府主义者,向往这样一种世界,在这个世界里人人都像苏格拉底一样无忧无虑、自由自在。今天激动人类社会、为青年提供不断争辩材料的所有问题,也都曾激动过那一小群思想家和健谈的人,他们和他们的导师都觉得没有论道的生活是不值得人过的。社会思想的各个流派都能在那儿找到它的代表,也许还是它的渊源。

How the master lived hardly anybody knew. He never worked, and he took no thought of the morrow. He ate when his disciples asked him to honor their tables; they must have liked his company, for he gave every indication of physiological prosperity. He was not so welcome at home, for he neglected his wife and children; and from Xanthippe’s point of view he was a good-for-nothing idler who brought to his family more notoriety than bread. Xanthippe liked to talk almost as much as Socrates did; and they seem to have had some dialogues which Plato failed to record. Yet she, too, loved him, and could not contentedly see him die even after three-score years and ten.

这位导师是怎样生活的,几乎没有人知道。他从不工作,也从不考虑第二天的事情。他的学生请他光临吃饭他就吃;他们一定也喜欢有他作伴,因为他能详尽地告诉他们养生之道。在家里他就不是这样受欢迎了,因为他不顾妻子儿女;在他的妻子桑西普看来,他是个毫无用处的懒虫,不给家里带来饭吃,还败坏名声。(桑西普)和苏格拉底一样喜欢谈话;他们似乎有过几番对话,柏拉图没有记录下来。但是她也爱他,甚至看到他在70岁以后死去,还不免戚戚然。

Why did his pupils reverence him so? Perhaps because he was a man as well as a philosopher: he had at great risk saved the life of Alcibiades in battle; and he could drink like a gentleman—without fear and without excess. But no doubt they liked best in him the modesty of his wisdom: he did not claim to have wisdom, but only to seek it lovingly; he was wisdom’s amateur, not its professional. It was said that the oracle at Delphi, with unusual good sense, had pronounced him the wisest of the Greeks; and he had interpreted this as an approval of the agnosticism which was the starting-point of his philosophy—“One thing only I know, and that is that I know nothing.” Philosophy begins when one learns to doubt—particularly to doubt one’s cherished beliefs, one’s dogmas and one’s axioms. Who knows how these cherished beliefs became certainties with us, and whether some secret wish did not furtively beget them, clothing desire in the dress of thought? There is no real philosophy until the mind turns round and examines itself. Gnothi seauton, said Socrates: Know thyself.

为什么他的学生这样尊敬他呢?也许因为他既是个哲学家,又富有人情味的缘故:他在战场上曾冒极大的危险救了亚西比德的性命;他喝酒有君子之风——不畏缩,也不过量。但是毫无疑问,他们最喜欢他那种出于明智的谦逊态度:他并不说自已有智慧,却只说自已热爱智慧;他是智慧的爱好者,并不是有智慧的人。据说德尔斐城具有非凡的良知良能的祭师,宣称他是最聪明的希腊人;他把这解释为认可了他哲学的出发点,即不可知论——“我只知道一件事情,那就是我什么也不知道。”哲学的开端在于我们懂得怀疑——特别是怀疑我们所抱的信念、教条和公理。谁知道这些信念怎么竟成了我们确信的东西了呢?难道不是某种秘密的愿望偷偷地将欲望披上了思想的外衣而将它们引发出来的吗?只有到人的心灵转而省察自身时才会有真正的哲学。苏格拉底说:认识你自己吧。

There had been philosophers before him, of course: strong men like Thales and Heraclitus, subtle men like Parmenides and Zeno of Elea, seers like Pythagoras and Empedocles; but for the most part they had been physical philosophers; they had sought for the physis or nature of external things, the laws and constituents of the material and measurable world. That is very good, said Socrates; but there is an infinitely worthier subject for philosophers than all these trees and stones, and even all those stars; there is the mind of man. What is man, and what can he become?

当然,在他以前也有过哲学家:有像泰勒斯和赫拉克利特那样坚强的人,有像巴门尼德和埃利亚的芝诺那样精细的人,有像毕达哥拉斯和恩培多克勒那样善于观察的人;但他们多半是自然哲学家;他们探求外物的发展和性质,寻求物质可测世界的规律和构造。苏格拉底说,这很好;但是对于哲学家来说应该有远比所有这些树木、石头,甚至所有这些星辰更有价值的研究对象;还有人的心灵要研究。人究竟是什么?你将会变成什么呢?

So he went about prying into the human soul, uncovering assumptions and questioning certainties. If men discoursed too readily of justice, he asked them, quietly, tò tí?—what is it? What do you mean by these abstract words with which you so easily settle the problems of life and death? What do you mean by honor, virtue, morality, patriotism? What do you mean by yourself? It was with such moral and psychological questions that Socrates loved to deal. Some who suffered from this “Socratic method,” this demand for accurate definitions, and clear thinking, and exact analysis, objected that he asked more than he answered, and left men’s minds more confused than before. Nevertheless he bequeathed to philosophy two very definite answers to two of our most difficult problems—What is the meaning of virtue? and What is the best state?

因此他四处走访,探究人的心灵,揭露种种臆说,考问种种定论。如果人们津津乐道地谈到正义,他就很冷静地问他们,正义是什么?你用那些抽象的词语那么轻而易举地解决生死问题,你所说的这些词语是什么意思呢?你所说的荣誉、善行、道德、爱国心是什么意思?你所说的你自己是指什么?苏格拉底所热衷讨论的就是这样一些伦理学和心理学问题。有人对这种要求精确定义、清晰思想和确切分析的“苏格拉底方法”感到苦恼,反对说,他发问多于回答,使人们的思想比以前更加混乱了。然而,他对我们感到最麻烦的两个问题留给哲学两个很明确的答案——美德的意义是什么?什么是最好的国家?

No topics could have been more vital than these to the young Athenians of that generation. The Sophists had destroyed the faith these youths had once had in the gods and goddesses of Olympus, and in the moral code that had taken its sanction so largely from the fear men had for these ubiquitous and innumerable deities; apparently there was no reason now why a man should not do as he pleased, so long as he remained within the law. A disintegrating individualism had weakened the Athenian character, and left the city a prey at last to the sternly-nurtured Spartans. And as for the state, what could have been more ridiculous than this mob-led, passion-ridden democracy, this government by a debating-society, this precipitate selection and dismissal and execution of generals, this unchoice choice of simple farmers and tradesmen, in alphabetical rotation, as members of the supreme court of the land? How could a new and natural morality be developed in Athens, and how could the state be saved?

对那一代的年轻的雅典人来说,没有比这些论题更为重要的了。智者派已经破除了这些青年曾一度对奥林波斯山上男女众神所抱的信仰,也破除了人们对他们在很大程度上因为敬畏这些无所不在、不可胜数的神而产生制裁力量的那种道德律所抱的信仰;显然,只要不犯法,就没有理由说一个人不应该随心所欲。造成分裂的个人主义削弱了雅典人的性格,并最后使这个城市受到经过严格训练的斯巴达人的蹂躏。至于国家,有比由一群暴民操纵的、意气用事的民主政治更可笑的吗?有比由一个争论不休的团体所组成的政府更荒唐的吗?有比这种任意地选举、革职和处死将军更荒谬的吗?有比按姓名字母的次序轮流、不加选择地让头脑简单的农夫和商人充当国家最高法院的成员更滑稽的吗?应该怎样在雅典发展出一种新的、顺乎天理人情的道德来呢?国家如何才能得到挽救呢?

It was his reply to these questions that gave Socrates death and immortality. The older citizens would have honored him had he tried to restore the ancient polytheistic faith; if he had led his band of emancipated souls to the temples and the sacred groves, and bade them sacrifice again to the gods of their fathers. But he felt that that was a hopeless and suicidal policy, a progress backward, into and not “over the tombs.” He had his own religious faith: he believed in one God, and hoped in his modest way that death would not quite destroy him;2 but he knew that a lasting moral code could not be based upon so uncertain a theology. If one could build a system of morality absolutely independent of religious doctrine, as valid for the atheist as for the pietist, then theologies might come and go without loosening the moral cement that makes of wilful individuals the peaceful citizens of a community.

对这些问题的回答送了苏格拉底的命,同时也使他千古不朽了。如果他尽力恢复昔日的多神论信仰;如果他率领他那帮灵魂解放了的人们去庙宇圣林,让他们又祭祀他们祖先所崇奉的神灵,老一辈的公民就会尊敬他。但是他觉得那是毫无希望、无异于自杀的办法,是开倒车,是进入坟墓而不是“越过坟墓”。他有他自己的宗教信仰:他相信只有一个神,并以他那谦虚的态度希望死亡是不会彻底毁掉他的【参阅伏尔泰所讲的两个雅典人的故事,他们在谈论苏格拉底:“说只有一个神的人就是无神论者”。《哲学辞典》“苏格拉底”条目。】;但是他知道持久的道德律是不能建立在这么捉摸不定的神学基础上的。如果人们能建立一个完全独立于宗教学说之外的、对无神论者和虔诚教徒同样有效的道德体系,那末种种神学就可以相互交流而不削弱道德的粘合作用了;正是这种粘合作用才能使任性的个人成为温良的社会公民。

If, for example, good meant intelligent, and virtue meant wisdom; if men could be taught to see clearly their real interests, to see afar the distant results of their deeds, to criticize and coördinate their desires out of a self-cancelling chaos into a purposive and creative harmony—this, perhaps, would provide for the educated and sophisticated man the morality which in the unlettered relies on reiterated precepts and external control. Perhaps all sin is error, partial vision, foolishness? The intelligent man may have the same violent and unsocial impulses as the ignorant man, but surely he will control them better, and slip less often into imitation of the beast. And in an intelligently administered society—one that returned to the individual, in widened powers, more than it took from him in restricted liberty—the advantage of every man would lie in social and loyal conduct, and only clear sight would be needed to ensure peace and order and good will.

譬如,如果善意味着明智,美德就是智慧;如果人能够教育得认识清楚他们的真正利益,预见他们行为的长远结果,批判并协调他们的种种欲求,使这些欲求摆脱自相抵销的混乱状态进入有目的、创造性的和谐境地——这也许会给受过教育、老成持重的人提供道德规范,而在未受过教育的人就必须靠反复的训诫和外力的控制了。也许一切犯罪都是出于错误、偏见和愚蠢吧?有知识的人可能跟愚昧无知的人一样具有强烈的、反社会的冲动,但他一定更善于控制它们,不大会失足干出野兽般的勾当来。在一个管理得井井有条的社会里一这种社会权力扩大时偿还给个人的多于自由受限制时向个人索取的——每个人的好处在于彬彬有礼、安分守己的行为,只要有清楚的认识就能保证和平、秩序和善意。

But if the government itself is a chaos and an absurdity, if it rules without helping, and commands without leading,—how can we persuade the individual, in such a state, to obey the laws and confine his self-seeking within the circle of the total good? No wonder an Alcibiades turns against a state that distrusts ability, and reverences number more than knowledge. No wonder there is chaos where there is no thought, and the crowd decides in haste and ignorance, to repent at leisure and in desolation. Is it not a base superstition that mere numbers will give wisdom? On the contrary is it not universally seen that men in crowds are more foolish and more violent and more cruel than men separate and alone? Is it not shameful that men should be ruled by orators, who “go ringing on in long harangues, like brazen pots which, when struck, continue to sound till a hand is put upon them”?3 Surely the management of a state is a matter for which men cannot be too intelligent, a matter that needs the unhindered thought of the finest minds. How can a society be saved, or be strong, except it be led by its wisest men?

但是如果政府本身就是混乱一团、荒谬绝伦的,如果政府统治而不给予帮助,发令而不做出表率,——在这样的国家里,我们怎么能说服个人去遵守法律,并限制他在全体利益的范围内去谋取自己的私利呢?难怪亚西比德要反叛那种不信赖才能而把数量看得比知识还重的国家。没有思考、群众匆忙而又愚蠢地作出决定,空闲时孤寂时又后悔不迭,这样的地方就无怪乎出现混乱。单凭人数多就能得出智慧,这不是一种可鄙的迷信吗?恰恰相反,人在群体中比分开单独时更愚蠢、更狂暴、更残忍,难道这不是有目共睹的吗?演说家“长篇大论,说个不休,像铜盆敲一下便响个不停,直到用手按才止住”,【柏拉图:《普罗塔哥拉篇》第329节。】人们受这样的演说家的统治,岂不是很可耻吗?当然,治理国家这件事,人有再大的才智都不会够的,它需要绝顶聪明的人不受干扰的思考。社会不由最聪明的人来领导,怎么能得到挽救或强盛呢?

Imagine the reaction of the popular party at Athens to this aristocratic gospel at a time when war seemed to require the silencing of all criticism, and when the wealthy and lettered minority were plotting a revolution. Consider the feelings of Anytus, the democratic leader whose son had become a pupil of Socrates, and had then turned against the gods of his father, and laughed in his father’s face. Had not Aristophanes predicted precisely such a result from this specious replacement of the old virtues by unsocial intelligence?

在战争似乎需要禁止一切清谈物议的时候,在富有的、有知识的少数派正策划一场革命的时候,试想雅典颇孚众望的政党对这种贵族政治主义的反应吧。试想民主党领袖安尼图斯的感受吧,他的儿子曾是苏格拉底的学生,那时候转而反对他父亲所崇拜的神,并当面嘲笑他父亲。阿里斯托芬不是曾经精确地预言过旧道德被反社会的才智这样似是而非地取代而产生的结果吗?【阿里斯托芬在《云》(公元W423年)一剧中曾拿苏格也底和他的“思想铺子”开了个大玩笑,说在那帽子里人们学到了无论怎样错,都能证明自己对的本领,费德匹底斯打他父亲,理由是他父亲过去常打他,欠债总该还的。讽刺看来是很善意的:我们常看见阿里斯托芬与苏格拉底在一起,他们藐视民主政治的意见是一致的,柏拉图曾把《云》推荐给狄奥尼西奥斯看。这个剧本是在苏格拉底受审以前24年问世的,它与这位哲学家的悲惨结局可能没有多大关系。】

Then the revolution came, and men fought for it and against, bitterly and to the death. When the democracy won, the fate of Socrates was decided: he was the intellectual leader of the revolting party, however pacific he might himself have been; he was the source of the hated aristocratic philosophy; he was the corrupter of youths drunk with debate. It would be better, said Anytus and Meletus, that Socrates should die.

接着革命爆发了,人们不论是为革命而战还是为反对革命而战,都非常残酷,不惜牺牲。民主派获胜时,苏格拉底的命运也就注定了,尽管他本人一直爱好和平,但是他是叛党的想领袖;是令人深恶痛绝的贵族主义哲学的渊源;是醉心于辩论的青年的教唆者。安尼图斯和墨勒图斯都说,还是处死苏格拉底为好

The rest of the story all the world knows, for Plato wrote it down in prose more beautiful than poetry. We are privileged to read for ourselves that simple and courageous (if not legendary) “apology,” or defence, in which the first martyr of philosophy proclaimed the rights and necessity of free thought, upheld his value to the state, and refused to beg for mercy from the crowd whom he had always contemned. They had the power to pardon him; he disdained to make the appeal. It was a singular confirmation of his theories, that the judges should wish to let him go, while the angry crowd voted for his death. Had he not denied the gods? Woe to him who teaches men faster than they can learn.

故事的其余情节是举世皆知的,因为柏拉图在比诗还美的散文中记载下来了。我们有幸可以自己阅读那篇简单明了、英勇过人(如果不是奇故事)的《自辩辞》或辩护,在这里第一个为哲学殉难的人宣告了思想自由的正当和必要,向国家维护了他的价值,并拒绝向素来为他所瞧不起的那一伙人乞求怜悯。他们有权赦免他但他不屑于提出请求。在愤怒的群众主张把他处死的时候,法官们愿意放走他,这就是对他的理论奇特的确认。但愿他不曾否定众神就好了?教导人们超越了人们所能接受的人,是要灾难临头的。

So they decreed that he should drink the hemlock. His friends came to his prison and offered him an easy escape; they had bribed all the officials who stood between him and liberty. He refused. He was seventy years old now (399 B.C.); perhaps he thought it was time for him to die, and that he could never again die so usefully. “Be of good cheer,” he told his sorrowing friends, “and say that you are burying my body only.” “When he had spoken these words,” says Plato, in one of the great passages of the world’s literature,

所以他们判定他应该饮鸩自尽。他的朋友们来狱中探望他并给他提供一条很容易的逃跑办法:他们已经买通了有碍于他获得自由的所有官吏。但是他拒绝了。他如今已经七十古来稀了(公元前399年);也许他认为该是他寿终正寝的时候了,他再也不会这样死得其所了。他对着正在伤心的朋友们说道鼓起劲儿来,就算你们仅仅是来埋葬我的肉体的。当他说了这些话之后”,柏拉图在一段伟大的世界文献中周伊特译本,《斐多篇116-118节。写道:

he rose and went into the bath-chamber with Crito, who bade us wait; and we waited, talking and thinking of . . . the greatness of our sorrow; he was like a father of whom we were being bereaved, and we were about to pass the rest of our lives as orphans . . . . Now the hour of sunset was near, for a good deal of time had passed while he was within. When he came out, he sat down with us again, . . . but not much was said. Soon the jailer . . . entered and stood by him, saying: “To you, Socrates, whom I know to be the noblest and gentlest and best of all who ever came to this place, I will not impute the angry feelings of other men, who rage and swear at me when, in obedience to the authorities, I bid them drink the poison—indeed I am sure that you will not be angry with me; for others, as you are aware, and not I, are the guilty cause. And so fare you well, and try to bear lightly what must needs be; you know my errand.” Then bursting into tears he turned away and went out.

他站起身来,和克里托走进浴室,克里托吩咐我们在守候;我们就等着,同时谈论着,思索着……我们悲痛的深重他像是一位我们即将失去的父亲,我们将要像孤儿般地度我们的余生。……如今已近日薄西山的时刻,因为他在里面呆了很久。他一出来,就又和我们坐在一起,……但是说的不多了。不久狱卒走进来,站到他身旁说:“苏格拉底呀,我知道你是迄今到这儿来的所有人中高贵、和善、最优秀的人,我料你不会有别人的愤怒情绪。当我遵从当局的意思要他们服毒自尽时,他们就对我横眉目、狂暴咒骂——真的,我相信你一定不会对我发怒的因为你知道,祸根不在我而在别人啊。再会吧,请勉力轻松愉快地担当起这必须办理的事情吧你是知道我的差事的。”接着他眼泪夺而岀,转身走了。

Socrates looked at him and said: “I return your good wishes, and will do as you bid.” Then turning to us, he said, “How charming the man is; since I have been in prison he has always been coming to see me . . . and now see how generously he sorrows for me. But we must do as he says, Crito; let the cup be brought, if the poison is prepared; if not, let the attendant prepare some.”

“Yet,” said Crito, “the sun is still upon the hill-tops, and many a one has taken the draught late; and after the announcement has been made to him he has eaten and drunk, and indulged in sensual delights; do not hasten then, there is still time.”

苏格拉底看着他,说道:我一定报答你的好意,尽力按你吩咐的去做然后转过身来对我们说“多可爱为人啊;我坐了监狱以后,他常来看望我,现在你们看他又是多么慷慨地为我悲伤啊。但是我们必须照他的话;克里托,如果毒药已准备好了,就把那杯东西拿来吧;否则,让侍者去准备克里托说可是,太阳还在山顶上呢,许多人总是迟迟才服药的他们在接到行刑通知之后,又吃又喝,纵情在感官的欢乐之中请别着急,还有时间哩。

Socrates said: “Yes, Crito, and they of whom you speak are right in doing thus, for they think that they will gain by the delay; but I am right in not doing thus, for I do not think that I should gain anything by drinking the poison a little later; I should be sparing and saving a life which is already gone; I could only laugh at myself for this. Please then to do as I say, and not to refuse me.”

苏格拉底说是的克里托,你所说的那些人这样做是对的,因为他们认为拖延服药会有好处但是我不这样做是对的,因为我认为推迟服毒毫无益处要是我吝惜已无可挽救的生命,我只能为此嘲笑自己了。好了,请照我说的去做,别拒绝了。

Crito, when he heard this, made a sign to the servant; and the servant went in, and remained for some time, and then returned with the jailer carrying the cup of poison. Socrates said: “You, my good friend, who are experienced in these matters, shall give me directions how I am to proceed.” The man answered: “You have only to walk about until your legs are heavy, and then to lie down, and the poison will act.” At the same time he handed the cup to Socrates, who in the easiest and gentlest manner, without the least fear or change of color or feature, looking at the man with all his eyes, as his manner was, took the cup and said: “What do you say about making a libation out of this cup to any god? May I, or not?” The man answered: “We only prepare, Socrates, just so much as we deem enough.” “I understand,” he said; “yet I may and must pray to the gods to prosper my journey from this to that other world—may this then, which is my prayer, be granted to me.” Then, holding the cup to his lips, quite readily and cheerfully he drank the poison.

克里托听到这里,便示意侍者;侍者走了出去,过了一会儿,同捧一杯毒药的狱卒一道回来了。苏格拉底说道:“好朋友,你精于此道,请指导我应该怎样服药”狱卒答道你只管四下走动,直到感觉双腿沉重了这时就躺下来,毒药就将生效了。”与此同时,他把那杯毒药递给苏格拉底,苏格拉底极为怡然自得、从容不迫,毫不畏惧、神色不变地以他往常的神态双目炯炯地注视着狱卒,接过那杯毒药,说道:“用这杯祭神,你意下如何?我可不可以这样做?卒答道:“苏格拉底,我们只准备了我们认为恰好用的分量”苏格拉底说道;“我明白了,但是我可以也必须祈祷神保佑我从这个世界顺利地到达另一个世界——那末允许我这样祈祷吧。说完,他举杯到唇边,很轻松愉快地喝下了毒药。

And hitherto most of us had been able to control our sorrow; but now when we saw him drinking, and saw too that he had finished the draught, we could no longer forbear, and in spite of myself my own tears were flowing fast; so that I covered my face and wept over myself; for certainly I was not weeping over him, but at the thought of my own calamity in having lost such a companion. Nor was I the first, for Crito, when he found himself unable to restrain his tears, had got up and moved away, and I followed; and at that moment Apollodorus, who had been weeping all the time, broke out into a loud cry which made cowards of us all. Socrates alone retained his calmness: “What is this strange outcry?” he said. “I sent away the women mainly in order that they might not offend in this way, for I have heard that a man should die in peace. Be quiet, then, and have patience.” When we heard that, we were ashamed, and restrained our tears; and he walked about until, as he said, his legs began to fail, and then he lay on his back, according to the directions, and the man who gave him the poison now and then looked at his feet and legs; and after a while he pressed his foot hard and asked him if he could feel; and he said, “No”; and then his leg, and so upwards and upwards, and showed us that he was cold and stiff. And then Socrates felt them himself, and said, “When the poison reaches the heart, that will be the end.” He was beginning to grow cold about the groin, when he uncovered his face (for he had covered himself up) and said,—they were his last words,—“Crito, I owe a cock to Asclepius; will you remember to pay the debt?” “The debt shall be paid,” said Crito; “is there anything else?” There was no answer to this question; but in a minute or two a movement was heard, and the attendant uncovered him; his eyes were set, and Crito closed his eyes and mouth.

在此之前,我们大多数人都还能控制住我们的悲痛;但此刻眼看着他喝并看着他把毒药一饮而尽,我们再也忍受不住了,禁不住泪如泉涌;掩面而泣当然我不是为他哭泣,而是因为想到自己不幸失去这样一位朋友而哭泣。我还不是第一个这样的人,克里托在我之前就忍不住眼泪,站起来走了出去,我也跟过去这时,一直在呜咽的阿波罗多拉斯突然号啕大哭起来,使我们都身心震颤。只有苏格拉底还保持着镇静,他说:“这神奇怪的哭声是怎么回事?我把妇女打发走就是为了避免这种干扰,因为我听说男子汉应该视死如归,所以请你们镇静下来.坚强一点我们听了这番话,感到羞愧,止住了眼泪;他来回走着,直到说他的腿开始感到沉重无力,才按指导仰天下,服侍他服毒的那个人不时地看着他的腿和脚;继而紧按他的脚,问他是否有感觉;他说“没”;然后又紧按他的腿,就这样渐按上,并告诉我们他已冰冷僵直。接着苏格拉底自己也感觉到了,说道“药力达到心脏时,生命就完结了。当他的腹股沟开始变冷时,他露出脸来(因为他蒙住了自己的脸),说,——这是他的遗嘱——“克里托,我还欠阿斯克勒庇俄斯希腊神话中的医神,按古希腊习惯.一个人在被医生治好一场病之后,应当送医神一只公鸡作为答谢。苏格拉底大概是在受审前不久看过病,没等到给公鸡就被判刑——译者一只公鸡;你会记住把这债还了吗?”克里托说:“我会记住还这债的,还有别的事?”对这个问题已经有回答了;但是一、两分钟之后,听见动了一下,侍者揭开盖在他脸上的东西;他的双目已经发直了,克里托合上了他的眼晴和嘴巴。

Such was the end of our friend, whom I may truly call the wisest, the justest, and best of all the men whom I have ever known.

这就是我们朋友临终时的情景,的确可以称他为我迄今所认识的人中最聪明、最正直、最优秀的人。

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