no impure thing is allowed to approach the pure. These are the sort of
words, Simmias, which the true lovers of wisdom cannot help saying
to one another, and thinking. You will agree with me in that?

  Certainly, Socrates.

  But if this is true, O my friend, then there is great hope that,
going whither I go, I shall there be satisfied with that which has
been the chief concern of you and me in our past lives. And now that
the hour of departure is appointed to me, this is the hope with
which I depart, and not I only, but every man who believes that he has
his mind purified.

  Certainly, replied Simmias.

  And what is purification but the separation of the soul from the
body, as I was saying before; the habit of the soul gathering and
collecting herself into herself, out of all the courses of the body;
the dwelling in her own place alone, as in another life, so also in
this, as far as she can; the release of the soul from the chains of
the body?

  Very true, he said.

  And what is that which is termed death, but this very separation and
release of the soul from the body?

  To be sure, he said.

  And the true philosophers, and they only, study and are eager to
release the soul. Is not the separation and release of the soul from
the body their especial study?

  That is true.

  And as I was saying at first, there would be a ridiculous
contradiction in men studying to live as nearly as they can in a state
of death, and yet repining when death comes.

  Certainly.

  Then, Simmias, as the true philosophers are ever studying death,
to them, of all men, death is the least terrible. Look at the matter
in this way: how inconsistent of them to have been always enemies of
the body, and wanting to have the soul alone, and when this is granted
to them, to be trembling and repining; instead of rejoicing at their
departing to that place where, when they arrive, they hope to gain
that which in life they loved (and this was wisdom), and at the same
time to be rid of the company of their enemy. Many a man has been
willing to go to the world below in the hope of seeing there an
earthly love, or wife, or son, and conversing with them. And will he
who is a true lover of wisdom, and is persuaded in like manner that
only in the world below he can worthily enjoy her, still repine at
death? Will he not depart with joy? Surely he will, my friend, if he
be a true philosopher. For he will have a firm conviction that there
only, and nowhere else, he can find wisdom in her purity. And if
this be true, he would be very absurd, as I was saying, if he were
to fear death.

  He would, indeed, replied Simmias.

  And when you see a man who is repining at the approach of death,
is not his reluctance a sufficient proof that he is not a lover of
wisdom, but a lover of the body, and probably at the same time a lover
of either money or power, or both?

  That is very true, he replied.

  There is a virtue, Simmias, which is named courage. Is not that a
special attribute of the philosopher?

  Certainly.

  Again, there is temperance. Is not the calm, and control, and
disdain of the passions which even the many call temperance, a quality
belonging only to those who despise the body and live in philosophy?

  That is not to be denied.

  For the courage and temperance of other men, if you will consider
them, are really a contradiction.

  How is that, Socrates?

  Well, he said, you are aware that death is regarded by men in
general as a great evil.

  That is true, he said.

  And do not courageous men endure death because they are afraid of
yet greater evils?

  That is true.

  Then all but the philosophers are courageous only from fear, and
because they are afraid; and yet that a man should be courageous
from fear, and because he is a coward, is surely a strange thing.

  Very true.