Why Socrates drank hemlock... (Nothing to do with music - except everything.)

("*Click here to argue with Socrates and make him drink the hemlock...*":http://www.mindspring.com/~mfpatton/sclinic.htm.
(Sort of...)And, no, this is not a post that should have been before the previous one...
The statement of Socrates after his condemnationj (according to Plato):

No doubt you think, gentlemen, that I have been condemned for lack of arguments which I could have used if I had thought it right to leave nothing unsaid or undone to secure my acquittal. But that is very far from the truth. It is not a lack of arguments that has caused my condemnation, but a lack of effrontery and impudence, and the fact that I have refused to address you in the way which would give you the most pleasure. You would have liked to hear me weep and wail, doing and saying all sorts of things which I regard as unworthy of myself...I do not regret the way in which I pleaded my case. I would rather die as the result of this defense than live as the result of the other sort. In a court of law, just as in warfare, neither I nor any other ought to use his wits to escape death by any means. In battle it is often obvious that you could escape being killed by giving up your arms and throwing yourself upon the mercy of your pursuers, and in every kind of danger there are plenty of devices for avoiding death if you are unscrupulous enough to stick at nothing. But I suggest, gentlemen, that the difficulty is not so much to escape death; the real difficulty is to escape from doing wrong, which is far more fleet of foot. I, the slow old man, have been overtaken by the slower of the two, but my accusers, who are clever and quick, have been overtaken by the faster--by iniquity. When I leave this court, I shall go away condemned by you to death, but they will go away convicted by truth herself of depravity and wickedness. And they accept their sentence even as I accept mine.
For my own part. I bear no grudge at all against those who condemned me and accused me...However, I ask them to grant me one favor. When my sons grow up, gentlemen, if you think that they are putting money or anything else before goodness, take your revenge by plaguing them as I plagued you; and if they fancy themselves for no reason, you must scold them just as I scolded you, for neglecting the important things and thinking that they are good for something when they are good for nothing. If you do this, I shall have had justice at your hands, both I myself and my children.

Greek philosopher Socrates was tried, convicted, and executed in Athens, Greece, in 399 B.C. At that time in Athens, criminal proceedings could be initiated by any citizen. In the case of Socrates, the proceedings began when Meletus, a poet, delivered an oral summons to Socrates in the presence of witnesses. The summons required Socrates to appear before the legal magistrate, King Archon, in a colonnaded building in central Athens called the Royal Stoa to answer charges of impiety and corrupting the youth.
The preliminary hearing before the magistrate at the Royal Stoa began with the reading of the written charge by Meletus. Socrates answered the charge. The magistrate questioned both Meletus and Socrates, then gave both the accuser and defendant an opportunity to question each other. Having found merit in the accusation against Socrates, the magistrate drew up formal charges.
The document containing the charges against Socrates survived until at least the second century C.E. Diogenes Laertius reports the charges as recorded in the now-lost document:

This indictment and affidavit is sworn by Meletus, the son of Meletus of Pitthos, against Socrates, the son of Sophroniscus of Alopece: Socrates is guilty of refusing to recognize the gods recognized by the state, and of introducing new divinities. He is also guilty of corrupting the youth. The penalty demanded is death.

Socrates spent his final hours in a cell in the Athens jail. The ruins of the jail remain today. The hemlock that ended his life did not do so quickly or painlessly, but rather by producing a gradual paralysis of the central nervous system.
The trial of Socrates, the most interesting suicide the world has ever seen, produced the first martyr for free speech. As I. F. Stone observed, just as Jesus needed the cross to fulfill his mission, Socrates needed his hemlock to fulfill his.

Thought i'd publish this stuff to sort of clarify what i was thinking when i did the previous post.
The truly interestinmg point in the contrast between what Socrates says here, and what Plato said in the previous post is that Plato considered Socrates his mentor and admired him greatly.
The phrase "missed the point" come to mind.
(The final episode of the teevee series "*The Prisoner*":http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000FOQ03C/mikewebersweberw comes to mind, too, comed to think...)