This is my favorite. I look forward to reading your thoughts on it. — frank

I will be citing this online translation: http://www.faculty.umb.edu/gary_zabel/Phil_100/Plato_files/310585462-Plato-Phaedo.pdf — Fooloso4

We soon learn that Plato was not with Socrates on his final day. He was sick. (59b)... What would have been so serious as to keep him away?...But for now we should note that Plato is twice removed...Here it is his absence rather than his presence that he draws our attention to. — Fooloso4

Socrates is doing something he has never done before, writing — Fooloso4

the same dream had visited me, now in one guise, now in another, but always saying the same thing: — Fooloso4

the dream was telling me to do the very thing that I was doing, to make music, since philosophy is the greatest music. (61a) — Fooloso4

I reflected that a poet should, if he were really going to be a poet, make stories rather than arguments, and being no teller of tales myself, I therefore used some I had ready to hand …(61b) — Fooloso4

But here he tells a story about a dream from his past life. That it is just a story will become clear. — Fooloso4

What we will hear are not simply arguments but stories. — Fooloso4

a comedy or tragedy — Fooloso4

Phaedo says that he was not overcome by pity and that Socrates seemed happy (58e) Phaedo reports feeling an unusual blend of pleasure and pain. (59a). As we shall see, opposites will play an important part in Socrates’ stories. — Fooloso4

Dreams are a bit of a mystery. — Amity

So, whose voice would be it be ? That of his daemonion ? Some kind of a spirit ? — Amity

But why would it need to do that - if it is a source of inspiration, then Socrates already has it in spades. — Amity

Does S. then see himself as a poet, even as he makes arguments ? — Amity

Why, if he was being encouraged to 'make music and practise it' - or rhythmic lyrics - would he dismiss his own talent and rely on second-hand material? — Amity

a comedy or tragedy
— Fooloso4
Both ? — Amity

Do you recommend only reading up to a certain point before discussion, or what ? — Amity

moving forward and backwards with the eventual goal of seeing the whole. — Fooloso4

Do you recommend only reading up to a certain point before discussion, or what ? — Amity

up to and including 64a. — Fooloso4

I will take up issues as they occur in the text. — Fooloso4

I will be citing this online translation: http://www.faculty.umb.edu/gary_zabel/Phil_100/Plato_files/310585462-Plato-Phaedo.pdf — Fooloso4

The next section will cover up to and including 64a. — Fooloso4

What we will hear are not simply arguments but stories. The question arises as to whether this is a comedy or tragedy. Phaedo says that he was not overcome by pity and that Socrates seemed happy (58e) Phaedo reports feeling an unusual blend of pleasure and pain. (59a). As we shall see, opposites will play an important part in Socrates’ stories. — Fooloso4

it would be remiss of us not to take advantage of having someone who knows what they are talking about to hand, and this is a text that has implications across our subject. — Banno

But mostly I'm looking forward to this reading because I expect the unexpected, the unknown unknown. — Banno

60b Socrates sat up on his couch and bent his leg and rubbed it with his hand, and while he was rubbing it, he said, “What a strange thing, my friends, that seems to be which men call pleasure! How wonderfully it is related to that which seems to be its opposite, pain, in that they will not both come to a man at the same time, and yet if he pursues the one and captures it he is generally obliged to take the other also, as if the two were joined together in one head. And I think, (60c) he said, “if Aesop had thought of them, he would have made a fable telling how they were at war and God wished to reconcile them, and when he could not do that, he fastened their heads together, and for that reason, when one of them comes to anyone, the other follows after. Just so it seems that in my case, after pain was in my leg on account of the fetter, pleasure appears to have come following after.

Before I go into detail, I think it probably best to wait for Fooloso4 to comment first... — Amity

Already on the first page I have a question — Wayfarer

I intend to stick with the narrative flow. Both those passages are from the first page. — Wayfarer

That's why I wasn't visited at all by the pity that would seem natural for someone present at a scene of sorrow, nor again by the pleasure from our being occupied, as usual, with philosophy-because the discussion was, in fact, of that sort - but a simply extraordinary feeling was upon me, a sort of strange mixture of pleasure and pain combined, as I reflected that Socrates was shortly going to die. All of us there were affected in much the same way, now laughing, now in tears, one of us quite exceptionally so, Apollodorus-1 think you know the man and his manner.

On entering we found Socrates, just released, and Xanthippe-you know her-holding his little boy and sitting beside him. When she saw us, Xanthippe broke out and said just the kinds of thing that women are given to saying: 'So this is the very last time, Socrates, that your good friends will speak to you and you to them.' At which Socrates looked at Crito and said: 'Crito, someone had better take her home.' So she was taken away by some of Crito's people, calling out and lamenting;

Socrates, meanwhile, sat up on the bed, bent his leg, and rubbed it down with his hand. As he rubbed it, he said: 'What an odd thing it seems, friends, this state that men call "pleasant"; and how curiously it's related to its supposed opposite, "painful": to think that the pair of them refuse to visit a man together, yet if anybody pursues one of them and catches it, he's always pretty well bound to catch the other as well, as if the two of them were attached to a single head...
This is just what seems to be happening in my own case: there was discomfort in my leg because of the fetter, and now the pleasant seems to have come to succeed it.'

I felt assured that even while on his way to Hades he would not go without divine providence, and that when he arrived there he would fare well, if ever any man did

Again, there seems to be a dismissal of what 'kinds of things that women are given to saying'. Implying that it is an unwanted feminine characteristic — Amity

Socrates despite his many virtues was probably in today’s terms not on board with gender equality. Don’t forget these dialogues hail from 300-400 BC. — Wayfarer

The idea of opposites not being mutually exclusive will come up several times. — Fooloso4

On the other hand, some casual misogyny in chats between men brings it bang up to date. — Cuthbert

So give Evenus this message, Cebes: say good-bye to him, and tell him, if he's sensible, to come after me as quickly as he can. I'm off today, it seems-by Athenians' orders.'
'What a thing you're urging Evenus to do, Socrates!' said Simmias.
'I've come across the man often before now; and from what I've seen of him, he'll hardly be at all willing to obey you.'
'Why,' he said, 'isn't Evenus a philosopher?'
'I believe so,' said Simmias.
'Then Evenus will be willing, and so will everyone who engages worthily in this business. Perhaps, though, he won't do violence to himself: they say it's forbidden.'...

Cebes now asked him: 'How can you say this, Socrates? How can it both be forbidden to do violence to oneself, and be the case that the philosopher would be willing to follow the dying?'

61 e - [Socrates] I myself can speak about them only from hearsay; but what I happen to have heard I don't mind telling you. Indeed, maybe it's specially fitting that someone about to make the journey to the next world should inquire and speculate as to what we imagine that journey to be like; after all, what else should one do during the time till sundown?'

There is a reference to ‘the ship in which Theseus sailed to Crete’. Is this the same ship which is elsewhere the subject of the famous Ship of Theseus conundrum? — Wayfarer

...and I have a question, too. Presumably - I haven't checked - the word translated as "art" is "techne"?

So immediately we are involved in the issue of Episteme and Techne? — Banno