Sunday, Jun. 21, 2009 - 12:23 a.m.
Plato's Apology
Let us reflect in another way,
and we shall see that there is
great reason to hope
that death is good,
for one of two things:
- either death is a state of nothingness
and utter unconsciousness,
or, as men say,
there is a change and migration
of the soul
from this world to another.
Now if you suppose
that there is no consciousness,
but a sleep like the sleep
of him who is undisturbed
even by the sight of dreams,
death will be an unspeakable gain.
For if a person were to select
the night in which his sleep
was undisturbed
even by dreams,
and were to compare with this
the other days and nights of his life,
and then were to tell us
how many days and nights
he had passed in the course of his life
better and more pleasantly than this one
, I think that any man,
I will not say a private man,
but even the great king,
will not find many such days or nights,
when compared with the others.
Now if death is like this,
I say that to die is gain;
for eternity is then only a single night.
But if death is the journey to another place,
and there, as men say,
all the dead are, what good,
O my friends and judges,
can be greater than this?
