rselves. This is the prophecy which I utter
before my departure to the judges who have condemned me.

Friends, who would have acquitted me, I would like also to talk with you
about this thing which has happened, while the magistrates are busy, and
before I go to the place at which I must die. Stay then a while, for we
may as well talk with one another while there is time. You are my
friends, and I should like to show you the meaning of this event which
has happened to me. O my judges--for you I may truly call judges--I
should like to tell you of a wonderful circumstance. Hitherto the
familiar oracle within me has constantly been in the habit of opposing
me even about trifles, if I was going to make a slip or error about
anything; and now as you see there has come upon me that which may be
thought, and is generally believed to be, the last and worst evil. But
the oracle made no sign of opposition, either as I was leaving my house
and going out in the morning, or when I was going up into this court, or
while I was speaking, at anything which I was going to say; and yet I
have often been stopped in the middle of a speech, but now in nothing I
either said or did touching this matter has the oracle opposed me. What
do I take to be the explanation of this? I will tell you. I regard this
as a proof that what has happened to me is a good, and that those of us
who think that death is an evil are in error. This is a great proof to
me of what I am saying, for the customary sign would surely have opposed
me had I been going to evil and not to good.

Let us reflect in another way, and we shall see that there is great
reason to hope that death is a 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 de