Socrates and the Dance of Death

The last moment of Socrates, oh, the mysterious last moment that have plagued scholars, made the best of philosophers scratch their heads. Why did Socrates urged his followers to pay the debt to Asclepius? After all, Asclepius was the Greek God of healing. What did Socrates want to be healed of after dying? Isn’t after dying you don’t need to be healed of anything? Didn’t Socrates, the father of western philosophy, know that? Or, was it that Socrates, according to Friedrich Nietzsche, wanted to be healed of life!

“What a coward!” surely Nietzsche would have said.