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Upon this, Simmias, smiling, said: "By Jupiter, Socrates, though I am
not now at all inclined to smile, you have made me do so; for I think
that the multitude, if they heard this, would think it was very well
said in reference to philosophers, and that our countrymen particularly
would agree with you, that true philosophers do desire death, and that
they are by no means ignorant that they deserve to suffer it."
"And indeed, Simmias, they would speak the truth, except in asserting
that they are not ignorant; for they are ignorant of the sense in which
true philosophers desire to die, and in what sense they deserve death,
and what kind of death. But," he said, "let us take leave of them, and
speak to one another. Do we think that death is anything?"
"Certainly," replied Simmias.
"Is it anything else than the separation of the soul from the body? and
is not this to die, for the body to be apart by itself separated from
the soul, and for the soul to subsist apart by itself separated from the
body? Is death anything else than this?"
"No, but this," he replied.


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