bathe himself, in order not to trouble others to wash his dead body.
Crito thereupon asks if he has any commands to give, and especially how
he would be buried, to which he, with his usual cheerfulness, makes
answer, "Just as you please, if only you can catch me;" and then,
smiling, he reminds them that after death he shall be no longer with
them, and begs the others of the party to be sureties to Crito for his
absence from the body, as they had been before bound for his presence
before his judges.

After he had bathed, and taken leave of his children and the women of
his family the officer of the Eleven comes in to intimate to him that it
is now time to drink the poison. Crito urges a little delay, as the sun
had not yet set; but Socrates refuses to make himself ridiculous by
showing such a fondness for life. The man who is to administer the
poison is therefore sent for; and on his holding out the cup, Socrates,
neither trembling nor changing color or countenance at all, but, as he
was wont, looking steadfastly at the man, asked if he might make a
libation to any one; and being told that no more poison than enough had
been mixed, he simply prayed that his departure from this to another
world might be happy, and then drank off the poison, readily and calmly.
His friends, who had hitherto with difficulty restrained themselves,
could no longer control the outward expressions of grief, to which
Socrates said, "What are you doing, my friends? I, for this reason,
chiefly, sent away the women, that they might not commit any folly of
this kind; for I have heard that it is right to die with good omens. Be
quiet, therefore, and bear up."

When he had walked about for a while his legs began to grow heavy, so he
lay down on his back; and his body, from the feet upward, gradually grew
cold and stiff. His last words were, "Crito, we owe a cock to