Athens, Still Remains: The Photographs of Jean-Franois Bonhomme

Still XVI

51 still Xvi To photograph Socrates as a musical instrument. And musical instruments as so many Socrateses. For what does Socrates do? He waits, but without waiting; he awaits death and dreams of annulling its delay by composing a sacrificial hymn. Death is indeed slow in coming, but he knows, he believes he knows, how to calculate the arrival of the day of reckoning. Not that he sees it coming, sees death coming, from Cape Sounion,no,heletsitcome,hehearsitcoming,youwillrecall,andthis too is a kind of music. He dreams, he dreams a lot, Socrates does, and he interprets his dreams. He describes them and wants to comply with what they prescribe. He wants to do what he has to and he knows what he has to do, what he owes. One of these dreams announces death to him; it tells him when death will come, when the delay will end, along with its imminence. The other enjoins him to pay a debt by composing music to oVer to the god whose votive festival was responsible for deferringhisdeath .IntheCrito,asweknow,Socratesowestoadreamthe powertocalculatethemomentofhisdeath.Thedreamofanightallows him to see and to hear. Apparition and appellation: tall and beautiful, clothed in white, a woman calls him by name in order to give him this rendez-vous, the moment of death, thus annulling in advance both the delay and the contretemps. (Is this not the very desire of philosophy, the destruction of the delay, as will soon be confirmed?) She comes to him, this woman does, as beautiful, perhaps, as the name of Socrates; he “thought he saw” her coming, thus seeing the death that would not be long in coming. One has the feeling that his own name has all of a sudden become inseparable from the beauty of this woman. Neither this beauty nor his name, as a result, can be separated from the news of his death: news announcing to him not that he will die, but rather that he will die at a particular moment and not another. The woman predicts for him not a departure but an arrival. More precisely, she orients the departure—for it is indeed necessary to depart and part ways, 52 • 25 • 53 to leave and take one’s leave—from the voyage’s point of arrival by citing the Iliad. But Crito persists in deeming this dream to be extravagant , strange, or mad (atopon to enupnion), and he continues to dream of Socrates’ “salvation.” socr ates: What is this news? Has the ship come from Delos, at the arrival of which I am to die? crito: It has not exactly come, but I think it will come today from the reportsofsomemenwhohavecomefromSounionandleftitthere.Now it is clear from what they say that it will come today, and so tomorrow, Socrates, your life must end. socr ates: Well, Crito, good luck be with us! If this is the will of the gods, so be it. However, I do not think it will come today. crito: What is your reason for not thinking so? socr ates: I will tell you. I must die on the day after the ship comes in, must I not? crito: So those say who have charge of these matters. socr ates: Well, I think it will not come in today, but tomorrow. And my reason for this is a dream which I had a little while ago in the course of this night. And perhaps you let me sleep just at the right time. crito: What was the dream? socr ates: IthoughtIsawabeautiful,fairwoman,clothedinwhiteraiment , who came to me and called me and said, “Socrates, on the third day thou wouldst come to fertile Phthia.”É A little later, so to speak, on the next day (this is in the Phaedo, “the day before, when we left the prison in the evening we heard that the 54 • 26 • 55 ship had arrived from Delos”Á), a dream again dictates the law. Unlike the other dream, this one does not give Socrates anything to see or to hear; it gives an order, it “prescribes” or orders him to compose and devote a hymn to the god who, while giving him death, thereby grants him the time of death, the delay or the reprieve as well as that which puts an end to the reprieve, the delay that does away with itself . Socrates owes him this...