 | The Poetic Writings of Thomas Cradock, 1718-1770 |  |
Scene 2nd
Socrates, Plato, Crito, PhedonSocrates
What gloom is this, my worthy youths, that sits
So heavy on the visage? You're no more
Lightsome and gay, as when you us'd to crowd
Around your old philosopher, to hear
The smooth and easy dictates he unfolded.
You seem distrest, as if some sudden evil,
Some unexpected blow, had stunn'd your souls,
And wretchedness and you were grown familiar.
Plato
Alass! we're now no strangers to each other.
Ah! Socrates, canst thou demand the cause
Why all thy friends have lost their wonted glee,
Why they look sunk in thought, in deep anxiety,
When thou, who long hast been their heart's best solace
Their dear-lov'd object of esteem and reverence,
Stands't tott'ring on the precipice of fate,
The horrid precipice, nor seem'st to hear
The gulph that roars beneath thee?
Socrates
Pho! my friends;
This all your cause? I am not worth your sorrows.
Too long already have I toil'd, deprest
By this dull clayey covering, this incumbrance,
That keeps me downward; while my soul aspires
To something higher, something that she whispers
As far exceeds what we call bliss below,
As man himself excells the vilest worm,
218
This needless anguish? Wou'd you please your Socrates,
Be cheerful still, be gay, as you were wont,
And listen, blithe, to those important truths,
I'll never cease to speak, while life informs
This old and tottering fabrick.
Crito
Chearful, say'st thou?
O Socrates, in vain wou'st thou instruct us
To bear serene the perils, that we fear.
While thus our big-swol[le]n hearts bleed inly for thee,
Too piercing is the anguish that we feel,
E'en to be sooth'd by thee.
Phedon
We mourn, we mourn
For thee our dear-lov'd friend, our blest instructor,
And therefore are we come once more to move thee,
To yield awhile to this thy pressing danger.
Well do we know the firmness of thy soul;
Dauntless she views the rancour of her foes,
And smiles at all the efforts of their fury.
But oh! forgive us, if we urge thy flight;
Evade at present what will else destroy thee:
The citizens will yet return to reason,
Soon will they wonder at their own mad folly,
And blush to think they e'er could hurt their Socrates.
Plato
Then to thy wishing friends mayst thou return,
With glory soon; again from thee they'll hear
The words of wisdom, nay, the words of life;
For what is life without that heavenly guide,
To lead us onward to eternal day?
Consider; Oh! reflect, if thou art lost,
We lose the hand that guides us, and again
Sink in that rayless state, wherein the world
Long time had grop'd in vain, till heaven sent thee
To drive the darkness, and illume our hearts.
219
What means my Plato? how! must Socrates
Fly from his country like some villain—traytor,
Who bears within him all the guilt, for which
He fears the just resentment of his citizens?
Is life so very valuable, that he
Must give the lie to what himself had taught,
Poorly resign his yet-unsullied fame,
And bid farewel to all his peace of mind,
Meanly to save it? Never, friends, o never,
Shall your Preceptor thus condemn his Doctrines.
Plato
Sure when a desperate enemy resolves
To ruin worth, any by fallacious arts
Betray that virtue which he hates to death;
The guiltless sufferer can fear, no stain
Will soil his honest praise, if he awhile
Leaves his ungrateful country, and retires,
Till she at length recovers from her madness,
With tears calls back her dear, her injur'd patriot,
With open arms receives him to her bosome,
Owns her offence, and begs him to forgive her.
Socrates
The man, that flies the justice of his country,
Must have some inward reason for his conduct;
He wou'd not fly but that his conscious mind
Urges his flight;—he knows too well he's guilty,
And therefore he escapes; I know my innocence,
And therefore am resolv'd to stand my trial.
O friends, conceive the transport I must feel
To hear my foes with all their busy malice
Rack their poor thought to find one single circumstance,
Whereon to ground their cruel accusation.
How shall I smile, to hear the twist and torture
Each harmless word, and each indifferent action,
To mould them to their purpose, but in vain.
Plato
Alass! Thou wilt not see the fearful danger:
220
Pleads 'gainst exalted merit, quick enflam'd
By his insidious, his bewitching eloquence,
Lose all destinction soon 'twixt right and wrong,
And madly vote to death the man they love,
The man by whom they live, by whom they're free.
Phedon
Hast thou forgot, how those unhappy chiefs,
Who fought victorious at the Arginuse,
And dyed the azure main with Spartan blood,
The blood of enemies that struck at Athens,
Fell victims to an inflam'd populace?
What was their crime? fatal necessity.
The winds, the waves, the very gods oppos'd them;
Yet still they suffer'd; nor their own high merit,
Nor even thou, tho' nobly didst thou plead
In their defense, cou'dst save them from their fate,
Crito
They perish'd—so wilt thou—remember yet;
Thy Alcibiades
Rather than face trial for impiety due to the multilation of the Hermae, Alcibiades fled in 415 B.C. to Sparta. See Act 1, Scene 2, note 4. His advice to the Spartans in the Peloponnesian War contributed significantly to their eventual victory over Athens. Alcibiades, an open traitor condemned to death by Athens and cursed for sacrilege, was a supposed pupil of Socrates. This association was a critical factor in public opinion relative to Socrates' alleged corruption of the youth of the city.
Equal to ev'ry danger; yet he thought
It well befitted his high fortitude
To avoid his partial trial, when he knew
His judges were his foes, and stood determin'd
To satiate their resentment with his blood.
Socrates
In vain are these examples urg'd—I still
Will front the danger, be it e'er so dreadful.
But why do I say, danger? Life to me
Long time hath worn indifference. Even now
Death hath not one poor terror to appall me:
And, if such base injustice sways my country,
Meanly to yield to my causeless foes,
Tho' well ascertain'd of my innocence;
I'll meet this death, this bug-bear to mankind
E'en as a courteous friend that kindly takes me
From a base world, which knows not how to value
A patriot-citizen, devoid of guile,
221
Plato
Yet let Xantippe, let your children plead;
Yet live for them—your little innocents
Deserve your life, as long as heaven will grant it.
Tis sure not like a father, thus to waste it,
When their young tender years demand support
From thy directing hand—O think, think of them,
Think, what they lose, when they're bereav'd of thee.
Socrates
Xantippe and my children share my heart:
Forbid it, heaven, that shou'd want for them,
That strong affection, which our common mother
Enforces to the meanest of her offspring!
Yet still there is a more coercive law,
Which the mind will obey; and, when that tells me
To stay and face the malice of my foes;
I think, I'm well absolv'd, if to that pow'r,
Who ever guards the orphan and the widow
I leave them, with a firm and holy confidence,
That he will be to them a friend, a father.
| The Poetic Writings of Thomas Cradock, 1718-1770 | |