At the conclusion of the three arguments, Socrates pauses. Simmias and Cebes are whispering to each other. Socrates asks them what the problem is. They admit to being reluctant to bring up further problems as the hour of Socrates’ death is approaching. Socrates mentions the story that swans sing most beautifully when they are about to die, as prophets of Apollo. Socrates will offer his swan song to his friends.
Simmias likens the soul to a harmony or attunement of strings of a lyre. While the instrument is intact it makes beautiful music. But if the instrument is broken, the harmony perishes along with the instrument.
Socrates asks Cebes about his challenge to immortality. He provides a story in which a tailor makes many garments, including those for himself. Each one wears out in turn, and he produces another to replace it. Finally, however, he grows old and dies. He has outlived many garments, but in the end he perishes no less than the garments he has produced. Even if we are persuaded that the soul undergoes reincarnations, how can we be sure that in the end it does not perish along with its body?
At this point, Phaedo’s narration of Socrates’ last hours is interrupted by Echecrates, his auditor. Echecrates admits to having been attracted to the account that makes the soul a harmony of the body. But now, it seems, that very theory calls into question the immortality of soul. Here Plato ratchets up the suspense. Will Socrates be able to defend the thesis of immortality of soul in the time remaining before his execution? Or will his followers, and we, who are privileged to overhear the narration, be bereft of both Socrates and his philosophical vindication? Will the man and his philosophy perish in vain?
Phaedo assures Echecrates that this was Socrates’ finest hour, as he confronted two apparently devastating critiques of the doctrine of immortality in his extremity.
Undaunted by the challenges, Socrates warned his companions about misology, the distrust of reason. He compares the situation to one in which an individual is betrayed by a trusted friend. Becoming embittered, he falls into misanthropy, the distrust of others. In a similar way, we may lose faith in reason when a cherished belief of ours is refuted by argument. But we must believe that the fault is not reason itself, but our own limited powers in reasoning. Socrates goes on to urge his listeners to persevere in their studies, even if Socrates himself fails to answer to the challenge in the time before his death. “Having girded my loins, Simmias and Cebes, I take up your challenge,” says Socrates. “But you, if you take my advice, don’t pay attention to Socrates, but much rather to the truth. If I seem to you to speak the truth, then agree with me; if not, resist me with every word, so that in my enthusiasm I don’t deceive both myself and you …”[9]
[9] Plato Phaedo 91b-c.