Plato's Crito

In Plato's Crito: Socrates in Prison Before His Death, Plato presents one of the most moving and practical moments in the life of Socrates. The trial is over. Socrates has been sentenced to death. In the quiet hours before the sentence is carried out, his old friend Crito comes to visit him in prison with an urgent plan: Socrates can still escape.

What follows is not a dramatic chase or a desperate attempt to avoid death, but a calm and powerful conversation about justice, duty, friendship, courage, and how a person should face mortality. Crito begs Socrates to save himself, warning him about reputation, family, loyalty, and the grief of those who love him. Socrates, however, insists that the question is not simply whether he can live, but whether he can live rightly.

This short dialogue is one of Plato's clearest portraits of Socrates as a philosopher who refuses to betray truth, reason, or justice, even when his own life is at stake. It is a work about law and conscience, but also about fear, death, friendship, and the strength required to remain faithful to one's principles.

This edition presents Crito in a modern English translation designed to be accurate, readable, and accessible. It is ideal for students, teachers, general readers, philosophy beginners, and anyone interested in Socrates, Plato, ancient Greek philosophy, ethics, justice, or the question of how to live well when death is near.

This edition brings one of philosophy's great prison dialogues into clear modern English for readers today.