This final section needs neither summary nor comment.

To this Crito replied, ‘Very well, Socrates; but what instructions have you for our friends here or for me about the children, or about any other matter? We want to do just what would be of most service to you.’

‘Only what I am always telling you, Crito, nothing very new. Look after yourselves: then anything you do will be of service to me and mine, and to yourselves too, even if at this moment you make no promises to that effect; but if you neglect yourselves, and refuse to follow that path of life which has been traced out in this present conversation and in others that we have had before, then, plentiful and vehement though your present promises may be, all you do will be fruitless.’

‘Then,’ said Crito, ‘we shall strive to do as you bid us. But how are we to bury you?’

‘However you like,’ said Socrates, ‘provided you can catch me and prevent my escaping you.’ Then with a quiet laugh and a look in our direction he remarked, 'You know, I can't persuade Crito that I am the Socrates here present, the person who is now talking to you and arranging the topics of our conversation; he imagines that I am the dead body which he will shortly be looking at, and so he asks how he is to bury me.