The Death of Socrates
Hemlock
Jacques-Louis David · 1787
01
Paris. The Salon of 1787.
Thomas Jefferson walks the rooms.
“The best thing,” he writes, is this.
02
Socrates, sentenced to die.
One hand points up.
The other reaches for the poison.
He isn't looking at the cup.
03
The man with the cup can't watch.
He hands it over with his face in his hand.
04
Crito grips his thigh.
As if he could hold him here.
05
Down the corridor, up the stairs,
his family is led away.
06
At the foot of the bed, an old man. Head bowed.
Plato. He wrote this scene down.
He wasn't there. David signed his initials under him.
The whole cell.
Uncropped.
“Crito, I owe a cock to Asclepius; will you remember to pay the debt?”
1794
Seven years after the Salon, the Terror.
The Trudaine brothers go to the guillotine.
One of them paid for this painting.
Jacques-Louis David
French · Neoclassicism · 1748 to 1825
Sources · 5