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June 22, 2002 cock debt
People find inspiration from many sources. Some people find it in the holy books of religion. Some find it in order, like mathematics, geometry, and music. Others are inspired by nature. I am inspired by the teachings of the great philosophers. And of all the words spoken by all the philosophers who have ever lived, I am haunted and tantalized most by the last words of Socrates. After drinking the hemlock, Socrates walked around his cell and chatted with friends until his legs got heavy. Then he lay down as he grew progressively colder from the feet up. When the poison reached his groin, Socrates fell silent and covered his face with a sheet. Then suddenly, Socrates pulled the sheet down, uncovered his face, and spoke these last immortal words: "Crito, I owe a cock to Asclepius; will you remember to pay the debt?"
Why do I find such meaning in the last words of Socrates? There are several reasons. First, the apparent absence of profundity is, for me, profound. He could have said absolutely anything about the meaning of life or some other subject of substance and we would have lapped it up like Linda Lovelace. But he used his last breath to "take care of bidness." Second, until recently, I had wondered about the debt itself. Why a cock? What kind of cock? For what purpose was it borrowed? Did Crito, in fact, satisfy the debt? Did he get a receipt? Recent manuscripts unearthed in the excavation of an Athens bathhouse shed light on these important questions.
Scholars originally thought Socrates had borrowed poultry from the famous chicken farmer, Asclepius. Socrates wandered around a bit and it was common practice in ancient Greece for "business travelers" to use roosters both as "travel alarm clocks" and as breakfast. Typically, the Greek traveler would awaken to the crow of his cock and, instead of hitting a "snooze button," would sleepily throttle the bird quiet before giving it to a slave to fry. But the newly discovered documents have altered this explanation for the last words of Socrates.
Besides being a purveyor of poultry, Asclepius was a rather well-endowed homo. When Socrates wasn't driving people crazy with his incessant questions, he enjoyed rousing sessions of "hide the kabob" with Asclepius. Apparently, the two great men would take turns being the "bitch." One day Asclepius would "serve the souvlaki"; the next day, Socrates would dish it out and Asclepius would receive. Sort of like pitch and catch, as far as I can tell. Anyway, as Socrates lay dying, he no doubt thought about many things and he recalled that, the day before his death, he had taken it up the poop-chute with Asclepius; thus, on his death bed, Socrates owed a cock to Asclepius.
Postscript: Crito assured his dying teacher that he would repay the cock debt. Plato writes that, in doing so, "Crito's fingers were crossed." As it turned out, Crito was the only heterosexual male in all of Greece and Asclepius was not, in Plato's words, "his type." And so it happened that Asclepius was shit out of luck.
© 2002 by the beastmaster