3 Plato 3 · On Death. Handed down at the Academy, from his Phaedo
From the Phaedo: the argument in the cell on the day Socrates was put to death, from morning until he drank. The whole of it labours to prove that the mind does not perish with the body. Plato records in the dialogue itself that he was not there that day, being ill. That is from his own hand, and the fifth chapter takes it for its title. For the man, see the Gospel of Plato. The Order does not take his proof of an undying mind. What it takes is the lyre of Simmias and the cloak of Cebes — what those two say is the Axiom of Dispersal. Plato did not strike out their objections, and the Order does not strike out his proof.
3.1Simmias sat down, and Cebes stood up.
3.2He said: what I have to say is colder than his.
3.3Grant that the mind is not the tuning of a lyre. Grant that it really can leave the body and still be.
3.4Even so, that is not enough.
3.5A weaver weaves many cloaks. He wears one out and takes another.
3.6He outlasts every one of his cloaks.
3.7But one day he dies, and on that day he is wearing the last of them.
3.8Do you call him deathless? He is not deathless. He is only more durable than cloaks.
3.9If the mind wears out many bodies, that only shows it is more durable than bodies.
3.10Durable is not undispersing.
3.11Between dispersing late and not dispersing, what lies between is not time. It is the whole distance there is. (cf. The Highest Covenant 6.1)
3.12I have written Cebes’ passage down too, without taking a word out of it.
3.13Those two men dealt me the two heaviest blows of that day.
3.14I still believe I answered them.
3.15If you read my answer and find it insufficient, I do not hold it against you.
3.16This book is not asking you to believe me. It is showing you what was said that day.