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Apology of Socrates - Plato · Classic Philosophy Library

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  Speaker 1: Apology by Plato Part one. How you, o Athenians have
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  Speaker 1: been affected by my accusers, I cannot tell, but I
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  Speaker 1: know that they almost made me forget who I was.
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  Speaker 1: So persuasively did they speak, And yet they have hardly
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  Speaker 1: uttered a word of truth. But of the many falsehoods
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  Speaker 1: told by them, there was one which quite amazed me.
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  Speaker 1: I mean, when they said that you should be upon
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  Speaker 1: your guard and not allow yourselves to be deceived by
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  Speaker 1: the force of my eloquence. To say this when they
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  Speaker 1: are certain to be detected as soon as I opened
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  Speaker 1: my lips and proved myself to be anything but a
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  Speaker 1: great speaker, did indeed appear to me most shameless, unless
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  Speaker 1: by the force of eloquence they mean the force of truth.
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  Speaker 1: For if such is their meaning, I admit that I
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  Speaker 1: am eloquent, But in how different a way from theirs.
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  Speaker 1: Well as I was saying, they have scarcely spoken the
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  Speaker 1: truth at all. But from me you shall hear the
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  Speaker 1: whole truth, not however, delivered after their manner and a
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  Speaker 1: set oration duly ornamented with words and phrases. No, by Heaven,
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  Speaker 1: but I shall use the words and arguments which occur
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  Speaker 1: to me at the moment, for I am confident in
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  Speaker 1: the justice of my cause, or I am certain that
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  Speaker 1: I am right in taking this course. At my time
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  Speaker 1: of life, I ought not to be appearing before you,
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  Speaker 1: o men of Athens, in the character of a juvenile orator.
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  Speaker 1: Let no one expected of me, and I must beg
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  Speaker 1: of you to grant me a favor. If I defend
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  Speaker 1: myself in my accustomed manner, and you hear me using
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  Speaker 1: the words which I have been in the habit of
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  Speaker 1: using in the aggarrel, at the tables of the money changes,
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  Speaker 1: or anywhere else, I would ask you not to be
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  Speaker 1: surprised and not to interrupt me on this account, for
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  Speaker 1: I am more than seventy years of age, and appearing
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  Speaker 1: now for the first time in the court of law.
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  Speaker 1: I am quite a stranger to the language of the place.
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  Speaker 1: And therefore I would have you regard me as if
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  Speaker 1: I were really a stranger, whom you would excuse if
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  Speaker 1: he spoke in his native tongue and after the fashion
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  Speaker 1: of his country. Am I making an unfair request of you.
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  Speaker 1: Never mind the manner which may or may not be good,
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  Speaker 1: but think only of the truth of my words, and
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  Speaker 1: give heed to that. Let the speaker speak truly, and
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  Speaker 1: the judge decide justly. And first I have to reply
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  Speaker 1: to the older charges and to my first accusers, and
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  Speaker 1: then I will go on to the latter ones. For
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  Speaker 1: of old I have had many accusers who have accused
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  Speaker 1: me falsely to you during many years, and I am
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  Speaker 1: more afraid of them than of Anaetis and his associates,
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  Speaker 1: who are dangerous too in their own way. But far
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  Speaker 1: more dangerous are the others who began when you were
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  Speaker 1: children and took possession of your minds with their falsehoods.
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  Speaker 1: Telling of one Socrates, a wise man who speculated about
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  Speaker 1: the heaven above, and searched into the earth beneath, and
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  Speaker 1: made the worse appear the better cause. The disseminators of
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  Speaker 1: this tale are the accusers whom I dread, for their
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  Speaker 1: hearers are apt to fancy that such enquirers do not
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  Speaker 1: believe in the existence of the gods. And they are many,
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  Speaker 1: and their charges against me are of ancient date, and
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  Speaker 1: they were made by them in the day when you
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  Speaker 1: were more impressible than you are now, in childhood, or
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  Speaker 1: it may have been in youth. And the cause, when
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  Speaker 1: heard went by default, for there was none to answer,
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  Speaker 1: and hardest of all, I do not know and cannot
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  Speaker 1: tell the names of my accusers, unless, in the chance
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  Speaker 1: case of a comic poet, all who from envy and
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  Speaker 1: malice have persuaded you, some of them having first convinced themselves.
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  Speaker 1: All this class of men are most difficult to deal with,
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  Speaker 1: for I cannot have them up here and cross examine them.
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  Speaker 1: And therefore I must simply fight with shadows in my
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  Speaker 1: own defense and argue. When there is no one who answers.
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  Speaker 1: I will ask you then to assume with me as
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  Speaker 1: I was saying, that my opponents are of two kinds,
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  Speaker 1: one recent, the other ancient, and I hope that you
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  Speaker 1: will see the propriety of my answering the latter first,
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  Speaker 1: for these accusations you heard long before the others, and
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  Speaker 1: much oftener. Well, then I must make my defense and
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  Speaker 1: endeavor to clear away in a short time a slander
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  Speaker 1: which has lasted a long time. May I succeed, if
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  Speaker 1: to succeed be for my good and yours, or likely
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  Speaker 1: to avail me in my cause. The task is not
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  Speaker 1: an easy one. I quite understand the nature of it,
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  Speaker 1: and so leaving the event with God in obedience to
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  Speaker 1: the law. I will now make my defense. I will
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  Speaker 1: begin at the beginning and ask, what is the accusation
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  Speaker 1: which has given rise to the slander of me, and
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  Speaker 1: in fact has encouraged meleitest to prove roof this charge
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  Speaker 1: against me. Well, what do the slanderers say? They shall
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  Speaker 1: be my prosecutors, and I will sum up their words
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  Speaker 1: in an affidavit. Socrates is an evil duel an, a
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  Speaker 1: curious person who searches into things under the earth and
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  Speaker 1: in heaven, and he makes the worse appear the better cause,
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  Speaker 1: and he teaches the aforesaid doctrines to others. Such is
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  Speaker 1: the nature of the accusation. It is just what you
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  Speaker 1: have yourselves seen in the comedy of Aristophanes, who has
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  Speaker 1: introduced a man, he calls Socrates going about and saying
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  Speaker 1: that he walks in air and talking a deal of
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  Speaker 1: nonsense concerning matters of which I do not pretend to
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  Speaker 1: know either much or little. Not that I mean to
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  Speaker 1: speak disparagingly of anyone who is a student of natural philosophy.
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  Speaker 1: I should be very sorry if Melidus could bring so
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  Speaker 1: grave a charge against me. But the simple truth is,
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  Speaker 1: o Athenians, that I have nothing to do with physical speculations.
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  Speaker 1: Very many of those here present are witnesses to the
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  Speaker 1: truth of this, and to them I appeal. Speak, then,
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  Speaker 1: you who have heard me, and tell your neighbors, whether
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  Speaker 1: any of you have ever known me. Hold forth, in
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  Speaker 1: few words or in many, upon such matters. You hear
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  Speaker 1: their answer, and from what they say of this part
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  Speaker 1: of the charge, you will be able to judge of
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  Speaker 1: the truth of the rest. As little foundation is there
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  Speaker 1: for the report that I am a teacher and take money.
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  Speaker 1: This accusation has no more truth in it than the other.
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  Speaker 1: Although if a man were really able to instruct mankind
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  Speaker 1: to receive mone for giving instruction, would in my opinion,
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  Speaker 1: be an honor to him. There is Gorgius of Leondim,
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  Speaker 1: and Prodecus of Seos, and Hippeus of Elis, who go
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  Speaker 1: the round of the cities and are able to persuade
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  Speaker 1: the young men to leave their own citizens by whom
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  Speaker 1: they might be taught for nothing, and come to them
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  Speaker 1: whom they not only pay, but are thankful if they
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  Speaker 1: may be allowed to pay them. There is at this
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  Speaker 1: time a Parian philosopher residing in Athens, of whom I
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  Speaker 1: have heard, and I came to hear of him. In
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  Speaker 1: this way, I came across a man who has spent
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  Speaker 1: a world of money on the sophists, Caius, the son
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  Speaker 1: of Hipponicus, And knowing that he had sons, I asked him, Carrius,
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  Speaker 1: I said, if your two sons were fowls or calves,
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  Speaker 1: there would be no difficulty in finding someone to put
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  Speaker 1: over them. We should hire a trainer of horses, or
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  Speaker 1: a farmer, probably, who would improve and perfect them in
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  Speaker 1: their own proper virtue and excellence. But as they are
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  Speaker 1: human beings, whom are you thinking of placing over them?
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  Speaker 1: Is there any one who understands human and political virtue?
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  Speaker 1: You must have thought about the matter, for you have sons.
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  Speaker 1: Is there any one there is? He said? Who is?
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  Speaker 1: He said I? And of what country? And what does
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  Speaker 1: he charge? Even asthoparian? He replied, he is the man
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  Speaker 1: and his charge is five mini? Happy is evenus? I
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  Speaker 1: said to myself. If he really has this wisdom and
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  Speaker 1: teaches that such a moderate charge, had I the same,
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  Speaker 1: I should have been very proud and conceited. But the
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  Speaker 1: truth is that I have no knowledge of the kind.
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  Speaker 1: I dare say Athenians, that some one among you will reply, yes, Socrates,
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  Speaker 1: but what is the origin of these accusations which are
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  Speaker 1: brought against you? There must have been something strange which
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  Speaker 1: you have been doing. All these rumors and this talk
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  Speaker 1: about you would never have arisen if you had been
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  Speaker 1: like other men. Tell us, then, what is the cause
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  Speaker 1: of them? For we should be sorry to judge hastily
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  Speaker 1: of you. Now I regard this as a fair challenge,
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  Speaker 1: and I will endeavor to explain to you the reason
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  Speaker 1: why I am called wise and have such an evil fame.
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  Speaker 1: Please to attend them. But although some of you may
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  Speaker 1: think that I am joking, I declare that I will
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  Speaker 1: tell you the entire truth. Men of Athens, this reputation
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  Speaker 1: of mine has come from a certain sort of wisdom
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  Speaker 1: which I possess. If you ask me what kind of wisdom,
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  Speaker 1: I reply, wisdom such as may perhaps be attained by man.
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  Speaker 1: For to that extent I am inclined to believe that
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  Speaker 1: I am wise, whereas the persons of whom I was
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  Speaker 1: speaking have a superhuman wisdom which I may fail to describe,
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  Speaker 1: because I have it not myself. And he who says
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  Speaker 1: that I have speaks falsely and is taking away my character.
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  Speaker 1: And here o men of Athens. I must beg you
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  Speaker 1: not to interrupt me, even if I seem to say
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  Speaker 1: something extravagant, for the word which I will speak is
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  Speaker 1: not mine. I will refer you to a witness who
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  Speaker 1: is worthy of credit. That witness shall be the God
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  Speaker 1: of Delphi. He will tell you about my wisdom if
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  Speaker 1: I have any, and of what sort it is. You
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  Speaker 1: must have known Chirophon. He was early a friend of
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  Speaker 1: mine and also a friend of yours, for he shared
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  Speaker 1: in the recent exile of the people and returned with you. Well. Charaphon,
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  Speaker 1: as you know, was very impetuous in all his doings,
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  Speaker 1: and he went to Delphi and boldly asked the oracle
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  Speaker 1: to tell him whether, as I was saying, I must
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  Speaker 1: beg you not to interrupt. He asked the oracle to
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  Speaker 1: tell him whether any one was wiser than I was,
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  Speaker 1: and the Pithian prophetess answered that there was no man wiser.
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  Speaker 1: Chiafhan is dead himself, but his brother, who is in court,
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  Speaker 1: will confirm the truth of what I am saying. Why
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  Speaker 1: do I mention this because I am going to explain
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  Speaker 1: to you why I have such an evil name. When
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  Speaker 1: I heard the answer, I said to myself, what the
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  Speaker 1: God mean and what is the interpretation of his riddle?
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  Speaker 1: For I know that I have no wisdom, small or great?
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  Speaker 1: What then can he mean when he says that I
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  Speaker 1: am the wisest of men, and yet he is a
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  Speaker 1: god cannot lie that would be against his nature. After
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  Speaker 1: long consideration, I thought of a method of trying the question.
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  Speaker 1: I reflected that if I could only find a man
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  Speaker 1: wiser than myself, then I might go to the God
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  Speaker 1: with a refutation in my hand. I should say to him,
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  Speaker 1: here is a man who is wiser than I am,
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  Speaker 1: But you said that I was the wisest. Accordingly, I
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  Speaker 1: went to one who had the reputation of wisdom and
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  Speaker 1: observed him. His name I need not mention. He was
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  Speaker 1: a politician whom I selected for examination, and the result
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  Speaker 1: was as follows. When I began to talk with him,
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  Speaker 1: I could not help thinking that he was not really wise,
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  Speaker 1: although he was thought wise by many, and still wiser
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  Speaker 1: by himself. And thereupon I tried to explain to him
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  Speaker 1: that he thought himself wise but was not really wise.
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  Speaker 1: And the consequence was that he hated me, and his
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  Speaker 1: enmity was shared by several who were present and heard me.
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  Speaker 1: So I left him, saying to myself as I went away, well,
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  Speaker 1: although I do not suppose that either of us knows
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  Speaker 1: anything really beautiful and good, I am better off than
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  Speaker 1: he is, for he knows nothing, and thinks that he knows.
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  Speaker 1: I neither know nor think that I know. In the
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  Speaker 1: latter particular. Then I seemed to have slightly the advantage
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  Speaker 1: of him. Then I went to another who had still
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  Speaker 1: higher pretensions to wisdom, and my conclusion was exactly the same.
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  Speaker 1: Whereupon I made another enemy of him, and of many
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  Speaker 1: others beside him. Then I went to one man after another,
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  Speaker 1: being not unconscious of the enmity which I provoked. And
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  Speaker 1: I lamented and feared this, But necessity was laid upon me.
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  Speaker 1: The word of God, I thought ought to be considered first,
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  Speaker 1: And I said to myself, go, I must to all
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  Speaker 1: who appeared to know and find out the meaning of
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  Speaker 1: the oracle. And I swear to you Athenians, by the
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  Speaker 1: dog I swear, for I must tell you the truth.
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  Speaker 1: The result of my mission was just this. I found
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  Speaker 1: that the men most in repute were all but the
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  Speaker 1: most foolish, and that others less esteemed were really wiser
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  Speaker 1: and better, I will tell you the tale of my
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  Speaker 1: wanderings and of the Herculean labors, as I may call them,
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  Speaker 1: which I endured, only to find at last the oracle irrefutable.
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  Speaker 1: After the politicians, I went to the poets, tragic, dithyrambic
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  Speaker 1: and all sorts, and there I said to myself, you
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  Speaker 1: will be instantly detected. Now you will find out that
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  Speaker 1: you are more ignorant than they are. Accordingly, I took
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  Speaker 1: them some of the most elaborate passages in their own writings,
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  Speaker 1: and asked what was the meaning of them, thinking that
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  Speaker 1: they would teach me something? Will you believe me? I
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  Speaker 1: am almost ashamed to confess the truth, but I must
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  Speaker 1: say that there is hardly a person present who would
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  Speaker 1: not have talked better about their poetry than they did themselves.
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  Speaker 1: Then I knew that not by wisdom do poets write poetry,
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  Speaker 1: but by a sort of genius and inspiration. They are
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  Speaker 1: like diviners and soothsayers, who also say many fine things,
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  Speaker 1: but do not understand the meaning of them. The poets
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  Speaker 1: appeared to me to be much in the same case.
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  Speaker 1: And I further observed that, upon the strength of their poetry,
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  Speaker 1: they believed themselves to be the wisest of men in
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  Speaker 1: other things in which they were not wise. So I departed,
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  Speaker 1: conceiving myself to be superior to them, for the same
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  Speaker 1: reason that I was superior to the politicians. At last
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  Speaker 1: I went to the artisans. I was conscious that I
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  Speaker 1: knew nothing at all, as I may say that I
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  Speaker 1: was sure that they knew many fine things. And here
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  Speaker 1: I was not mistaken, for they did know many things
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  Speaker 1: of which I was ignorant, and in this they certainly
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  Speaker 1: were wiser than I was. But I observed that even
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  Speaker 1: the good artisans fell into the same error as the poets.
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  Speaker 1: Because they were good workmen, they thought that they also
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  Speaker 1: knew all sorts of high matters, and this defect in
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  Speaker 1: them overshadowed their wisdom. And therefore I asked myself on
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  Speaker 1: behalf of the Oracle, whether I would like to be
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  Speaker 1: as I was, neither having their knowledge nor their ignorance,
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  Speaker 1: or like them in both. And I made answer to
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  Speaker 1: myself and to the Oracle that I was better off
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  Speaker 1: as I was. This inquisition has led to my having
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  Speaker 1: many enemies of the worst and most dangerous kind, and
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  Speaker 1: has given occasion also to many calumnies. And I am
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  Speaker 1: called wise, For my hearers always imagined that I myself
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  Speaker 1: possessed the wisdom which I find wanting in other's. But
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  Speaker 1: the truth is O Men of Athens, that God only
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  Speaker 1: is wise. And by his answer he intends to show
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  Speaker 1: that the wisdom of men is worth little or nothing.
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  Speaker 1: He is not speaking of Socrates. He is only using
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  Speaker 1: my name by way of illustration, as if he said he,
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  Speaker 1: O Men, is the wisest, who, like Socrates, knows that
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  Speaker 1: his wisdom is in truth worth nothing. And so I
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  Speaker 1: go about the world, obedient to the God, and search
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  Speaker 1: and make inquiry into the wisdom of anyone, whether citizen
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  Speaker 1: or stranger, who appears to be wise. And if he
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  Speaker 1: is not wise, then, in vindication of the oracle, I
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  Speaker 1: show him that he is not wise. And my occupation
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  Speaker 1: quite absorbs me, and I have no time to give
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  Speaker 1: either to any public matter of interest, or to any
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  Speaker 1: concern of my own. But I am in utter poverty
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  Speaker 1: by reason of my devotion to the God. There is
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  Speaker 1: another thing. Young men of the richer classes, who have
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  Speaker 1: not much to do, come about me of their own accord.
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  Speaker 1: They like to hear the pretenders examined, and they often
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  Speaker 1: imitate me and proceed to examine others. There are plenty
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  Speaker 1: of persons, as they quickly discover, who think that they
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  Speaker 1: know something, but really know little or nothing. And then
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  Speaker 1: those who are examined by them, instead of being angry
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  Speaker 1: with themselves, are angry with me. This confounded Socrates. They say,
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  Speaker 1: this villainous misleader of youth. And then if somebody ask them,
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  Speaker 1: why what evil does he practice or teach? They do
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  Speaker 1: not know and cannot tell. But in order that they
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  Speaker 1: may not appear to be a loss, they repeat the
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  Speaker 1: ready made charges which are used against all philosophers, about
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  Speaker 1: teaching things up in the clouds and under the earth,
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  Speaker 1: and having no gods, and making the worse appear the
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  Speaker 1: better cause, for they do not like to confess that
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  Speaker 1: their pretense of knowledge has been detected, which is the truth.
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  Speaker 1: And as they are numerous, and ambitious and energetic, and
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  Speaker 1: are drawn up in battle array, and have persuasive tongues,
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  Speaker 1: they have filled your ears with their loud and inveterate calumny.
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  Speaker 1: And this is the reason why my three accusers, Melitus
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  Speaker 1: and Anneitis and Lycan have set upon me. Alitus, who
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  Speaker 1: has a quarra with me on behalf of the poets,
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  Speaker 1: annitas on behalf of the craftsmen, and politicians lican on
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  Speaker 1: behalf of the rhetoricians. And as I said at the beginning,
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  Speaker 1: I cannot expect to get rid of such a mass
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  Speaker 1: of calumny all in a moment. And this, o Men
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  Speaker 1: of Athens, is the truth and the whole truth. I
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  Speaker 1: have concealed nothing, I have dissembled nothing. And yet I
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  Speaker 1: know that my plainness of speech makes them hate me.
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  Speaker 1: And what is their hatred but a proof that I
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  Speaker 1: am speaking the truth. Hence has arisen the prejudice against me,
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  Speaker 1: and this is the reason for it. As you will
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  Speaker 1: find out, either in this or in any future inquiry,
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  Speaker 1: I have said enough in my defense against the first
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  Speaker 1: class of my accusers. I turn to the second class.
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  Speaker 1: They are headed by militias. That good man and true
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  Speaker 1: lover of his country, as he calls himself against these two,
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  Speaker 1: I must try to make a defense. But there thereafter,
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  Speaker 1: David be read. It contains something of this kind. It
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  Speaker 1: says that Socrates is a doer of evil, who corrupts
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  Speaker 1: the youth, and who does not believe in the gods
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: of the state, but has other new divinities of his own.
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: Such is the charge, and now let us examine the
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: particular counts. He says that I am a doer of
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: evil and corrupt the youth. But I say, o men
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: of Athens, that Melitus is a doer of evil in
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: that he pretends to be in earnest when he is
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: only in jest, and is so eager to bring men
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: to try from a pretended zeal an interest about matters
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: in which he really never had the smallest interest. And
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: the truth of this I will endeavor to prove to you.
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: Come hither, Melitus, and let me ask a question of you.
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: You think a great deal about the improvement of youth? Yes,
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: I do. Or tell the judges then, who is their improver?
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: For you must know, as you have taken the pains
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: to discover the corrupt, and are citing and accusing me
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: before them. Speak then, and tell the judges who their
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: improver is. Observe Melitus that you are silent and have
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: nothing to say. But is not this rather disgraceful and
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: a very considerable proof of what I was saying, that
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: you have no interest in the matter. Speak up, friend,
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: and tell us who their improver is. The laws, But
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: that my good sir, is not my meaning. I want
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: to know who the person is, who, in the first
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: place knows the laws. The judges, Socrates, who are present
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: in court. What do you mean to say, Melitus, that
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: they are able to instruct an improve youth? Certainly they
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: are what all of them? Or some only not others?
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: All of them? By the Goddess Harry, that is good news.
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: There are plenty of improvers, then, And what do you
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: say of the audience? Do they improve them? Yes? They do,
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: and the senators, yes, the senators improve them. But perhaps
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: the members of the assembly corrupt them? Or do they
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: too improve them? They improve them? Then every Athenian improves
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: and elevates them all with the exception of myself, and
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: I alone am their corruptor. Is that what you affirm?
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: That is what I stoutly affirm. I am very unfortunate
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: if you are right. But suppose I ask you a question,
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: how about horses? Does one man do them harm and
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: all the world good? Is not the exact opposite the truth?
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: One man is able to do them good, or at
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: least not many. The trainer of horses, that is to say,
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: does them good? And others who have to do with
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: them rather injure them. Is that not true, Melitus, of
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: horses or of any other animals? Most assuredly, it is
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: whether you and a knight to say yes or no.
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: Happy indeed, would be the condition of youth if they
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: had one corrupter, only than all the rest of the
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: world were their improvers. But you, Melitas, have sufficiently shown
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: that you never had a thought about the young. Your
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: carelessness is seen in your not caring about the very
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: things which you bring against me. And now, Melitus, I
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: will ask you another question. By zeus, I will which
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: is better to live among bad citizens or among good ones?
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: And a friend, I say, the question is one which
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: may be easily answered. Do not the good do their
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: neighbors good? And the bad do them evil? Certainly? And
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: is there anyone who would rather be injured than benefited
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: by those who live with them? Answer, my good friend,
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: the law requires you to answer, does anyone like to
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: be injured? Certainly? Not? And when you accuse me of
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: corrupting and deteriorating the youth, do you allege that I
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: corrupt them intentionally or unintentionally? Intentionally? I say, but you
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: have just admitted that the good do their neighbors good?
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: And the evil do them evil? Now is that a
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: truth which your superior wisdom is recognized thus early in life?
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: And am I, at my age in such darkness and
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: ignorance as not to know that if a man with
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: whom I have to live is corrupted by me, I
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: am very likely to be harmed by him. And yet
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: I corrupt him, and intentionally too. You say, although neither
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: I nor any other human being is ever likely to
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: be convinced by you. But either I do not corrupt them,
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: or I corrupt them unintentionally, And on either view of
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: the case, you lie. If my offense is unintentional, the
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: law has no cognizance of unintentional offenses. You ought to
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: have taken me privately and warned and admonished me, for
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: if I had been better advised, I should have left
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: off doing what I only did unintentionally, No doubt I should.
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: But you would have nothing to say to me, and
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: refused to teach me. And now you bring me up
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: in this court, which is a place not of instruction
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: but of punishment. It will be very clear to you Athenians,
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: as I was saying that Melitas has no care at all,
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: great or small about the matter. But still I should
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: like to know, Melitus, in what I am affirmed to
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: corrupt the young? I suppose you mean, as I infer
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: from your indictment, that I teach them not to acknowledge
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: the gods which the state acknowledges, but some other new
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: divinities or spiritual agencies in their stead. These are the
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: lessons by which I corrupt the youth. As you say, yes,
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: that I say emphatically, then by the gods, Meleitus, of
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: whom we are speaking, tell me and the court in
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: somewhat plainer terms, what you mean. For I do not
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: as yet understand whether you affirm that I teach other
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: men to acknowledge some gods, and therefore that I do
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: believe in gods, or am not an entire atheist. Bis,
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: you do not lay to my charge, but only you
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: say that they are not the same gods which the
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: city recognizes. The charge is that they are different gods?
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: Or do you mean that I am an atheist simply
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: and a teacher of atheism? I mean the latter, that
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: you are a complete atheist. What an extraordinary statement. Why
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: do you think so, Belitis? Do you mean that I
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: do not believe in the godhead of the Sun or moon,
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: like other men. I assure you, judges that he does not,
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: for he says that the sun is stone in the
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: moon earth. Friend, Melitus, you think that you are accusing
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: Anaxagoras when you have but a bad opinion of the judges.
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: If you fancy them illiterate to such a degree, is
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: not to know that these doctrines are found in the
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: books of Anaxagoras the Clasomanian, which are full of them.
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: And so forsooth the youth are said to be taught
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: them by Socrates, when there are not unfrequently exhibitions of
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: them at the theater, and they might pay their money
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: and laugh at Socrates if he pretends to father these
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: extraordinary views. And so, Melitus, you really think that I
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: do not believe in any god. I swear by Zeus
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: that you believe absolutely and none at all. Nobody will
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: believe you, Melitus, And I am pretty sure that you
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: do not believe yourself. I cannot help thinking men of
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: Athens that Melitas is reckless and impudent, and that he
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: has written this indictment in a spirit of mere wantonness
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: and youthful bravado. Has he not compounded a riddle. Thinking
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: to try me, he said to him, I shall see
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: whether the wide Socrates will discover my facetious contradiction, or
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: whether I shall be able to deceive him in the
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: rest of them. For he certainly does appear to me
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: to contradict himself in the indictment, as much as if
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: he said that Socrates is guilty of not believing in
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: the gods, and yet of believing in them. But this
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: is not like the person who is in earnest. I
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: should like you, o, men of Athens, to join me
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: in examining what I conceive to be his inconsistency. And
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: do you, Melitus answer? And I must remind the audience
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: of my request that they would not make a disturbance
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: if I speak in my accustomed manner. Did ever man,
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: Melitus believe in the existence of human beings and not
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: of human things? I wish Men of Athens, that he
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: would answer and not be always trying to get up
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: an interruption. Did ever any man believe in horsemanship and
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: not in horses, in the flute playing and not in
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: flute players. No, my friend, I will answer to you
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: and to the court as you refuse to answer, for yourself.
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: There is no man who ever did. But now please
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: to answer the next question. Can a man believe in
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: spiritual and divine agencies and not in spirits or demigods?
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: Me cannot, how lucky I am to have extracted that
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: answer by the assistance of the court. But then you
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: swear in the indictment that I teach and believe in
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: divine or spiritual agencies, new or old, no matter, for
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: that at any rate, I believe in spiritual rual agencies,
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: so you say and swear in the affidavit. And yet,
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: if I believe in divine beings, how can I help
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: believing in spirits or demigods? Must I not? To be sure?
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: I must, And therefore I may assume that your silence
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: gives consent. Now, what are spirits or demigods? Are they
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: not either gods or the sons of gods? Certainly they are.
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: But this is what I call the facetious riddle invented
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: by you. The demigods or spirits are gods. And you
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: say first that I do not believe in gods, and
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: then again that I do believe in gods, that is
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: if I believe in demigods. For if the demigods are
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: the illegitimate sons of gods, whether by the nymphs or
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: by any other mothers of whom they are said to
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: be the sons. What human being will have believe that
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: there are no gods? If they are the sons of gods,
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: you might as well affirm the existence of mules and
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: deny that of horses and asses. Such nonsense, Melitus could
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: only have been intended by you to make trial of me.
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: You have put this into the indictment because you had
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: nothing real of which to accuse me. But no one
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: who has a particle of understanding will ever be convinced
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: by you that the same men can believe in divine
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: and superhuman beings and yet not believe that there are
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: gods and demigods and heroes. I have said enough in
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: answer to the charge of Melitus, and the elaborate defense
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: is unnecessary. But I know only too well how many
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: are the enmities which I have incurred. Then this is
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: what will be my destruction if I am destroyed. Not malitis,
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: not yet, and i'd but the envy and distraction of
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: the world, which has been the death of many good men,
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: and will probably be the death of many more, there
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: is no danger of my being the last of them.
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: Someone will say, and are you not ashamed, Socrates of
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: a course of life which is likely to bring you
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: to an untimely end? To him, I may fairly answer,
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: there you are mistaken. A man who is good for
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: anything ought not to calculate the chance of living or dying.
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: He ought only to consider whether in doing anything he
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: is doing right or wrong, acting the part of a
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: good man or of a bad Whereas, upon your view,
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: the heroes who fell at Troy were not good for much,
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: and the son of thirties above all, who altogether despised
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: danger in comparison with disgrace. When he was eager to
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: slay Hector, his goddess Mother said to him that if
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: he avenged his companion Patroclus and slew Hector, he would
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: die himself. Fate, she said, in these or the like words,
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: waits for you next after Hector. He received this warning
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: utterly despised danger and death, and instead of fearing them,
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: feared rather to live in dishonor than not to avenge
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: his friend. Let me die forthwith, he replies, and be
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: avenged of my enemy, rather than abide here by the
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: beaked ships, a laughing stock, and a burden of the earth.
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: Had Achilles any thought of death and danger? For wherever
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: a man's place is, whether the place which he has
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: chosen or that in which he has been placed by
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: a commander, there he ought to remain in the eye
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: of danger, he should not think of death, or of
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: anything but of disgrace. And this, O, Men of Athens,
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: is a true saying. Strange indeed would be my conduct, O,
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: Men of Athens, If I, who, when I was ordered
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: by the generals whom you chose to command me at
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: Potidea and Amphipolis and Delium, remained where they placed me
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: like any other man facing death. If now, when as
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: I conceive and imagine, God orders me to fulfill the
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: philosopher's mission of searching into himself and other men, I
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: were to desert my post through fear of death or
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: any other fear, that would indeed be strange, and I
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: might be justly arraigned in court for denying the existence
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: of the gods. If I disobeyed the oracle because I
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: was afraid of death, fancying that I was wise when
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: I was not wise. For the fear of death is
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: indeed the pretense of wisdom, and not real wisdom, being
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: a pretense of knowing the unknown. And no one knows
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: whether death, which men in their fear apprehend to be
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: the greatest evil, may not be the greatest good. Is
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: not this ignorance of a disgraceful sort, the ignorance which
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: is the conceit that a man knows what he does
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: not know. And in this respect only I believe myself
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: to differ from men in general, and may perhaps claim
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: to be wiser than they are. Whereas I know but
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: little of the world below. I do not suppose that
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: I know. But I do know that injustice and disobedience
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: to a better, whether God or man, is evil and dishonorable.
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: And I will never fear or avoid a possible good
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: rather than a certain evil. And therefore, if you let
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: me go now and are not convinced by anaidis who
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: said that since I have been prosecuted, I must be
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: put to death, or if not, that I ought never
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: to have been prosecuted at all, and that if I
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: escape now, your sons will all be utterly ruined by
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: listening to my words. If you say to me, Socrates,
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: this time we will not mind Anidis, and you shall
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: be let off, but upon one condition that you are
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: not to inquire and speculate in this way anymore, and
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: that if you are caught doing so again, you shall die.
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: If this was the condition on which you let me go,
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: I should reply, Men of Athens, I honor and love you,
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: but I shall obey God rather than you. And while
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: I have life and strength, I shall never cease from
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: the practice and teaching of philosophy, exhorting anyone whom I meets,
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: and saying to him after my manner, you, my friend,
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: a citizen of the great and mighty and wise city
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: of Athens, are you not ashamed of heaping up the
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: greatest amount of money and honor and reputation, and caring
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: so little about wisdom and truth and the greatest improvement
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: of the soul, which you never regard or heed at all.
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: And if the person with whom I am arguing says, yes,
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: but I do care, then I do not leave him
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: or let him go at once. But I proceed to
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: interrogate and examined and cross examine him. And if I
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: think that he has no virtue in him, but only
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: says that he has, I reproach him with undervaluing the
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: greater and overvaluing the less. And I shall repeat eat
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: the same words to everyone whom I meet, young and old,
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: citizen and alien, but especially to the citizens, inasmuch as
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: they are my brethren. For know that this is the
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: command of God. Then I believe that no greater good
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: has ever happened in the state than my service to
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: the God. For I do nothing but go about persuading you,
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: all old and young alike, not to take thought for
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: your persons or your properties, but first and chiefly, to
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: care about the greatest improvement of the soul. I tell
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: you that virtue is not given by money, but that
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: from virtue comes money and every other good of man,
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: public as well as private. This is my teaching. And
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: if this is the doctrine which corrupts the youth, I
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: am a mischievous person. But if any one says that
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: this is not my teaching, he is speaking an untruth. Wherefore, o,
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: men of Athens, I say to you, do as Anitis bids,
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: or not as Anitis bids, and either acquit me or not.
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: But whichever you do, understand that I shall never alter
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: my ways, not even if I have to die many times.
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: End of Part one, Part two. Men of Athens, do
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: not interrupt, but hear me. There was an understanding between
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: us that you should hear me to the end. I
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: have something more to say, at which you may be
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: inclined to cry out. But I believe that to hear
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: me will be good for you. And therefore I beg
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: that you will not cry out. I would have you
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: know that if you kill such a one as I am,
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: you will injure yourselves more than you will injure me.
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: Nothing will injure me, not melitus, nor yet aneitis. They cannot,
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: for a bad man is not permitted to injure a
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: better than himself. I do not deny that Anneidas may
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: perhaps kill him, or drive him into exile, or deprive
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: him of civil rights. And he may imagine, and others
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: may imagine, that he is inflicting a great injury upon him.
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: But there I do not agree. For the evil of
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: doing as he is doing, the evil of unjustly taking
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: away the life of another is greater far and now, Athenians,
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: I am not going to argue for my own sake,
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: as you may think, but for yours, that you may
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: not sin against the God by condemning me, who am
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: His gift to you, For if you kill me, you
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: will not easily find a successor to me. Who, if
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: I may use such a ludicrous figure of speech, am
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: a sort of gadfly given to the state by God.
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: And the State is a great and noble steed, who
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: is tardy in his motions owing to his very size,
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: and requires to be stirred into life. I am that
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: gadfly which God has attached to the State, And all
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: day long and in all places, am always fastening upon you,
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: arousing and persuading and reproaching you. You will not easily
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: find another like me, And therefore I would advise you
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: to spare me. I dare say that you may feel
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: out of temper, like a person who is suddenly awakened
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: from sleep, and you think that you might easily strike
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: me dead, as a knightis advises, and then you would
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: sleep on for the remainder of your life wives, unless God,
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: in his care of you, sent you another gadfly. When
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: I say that I am given to you by God,
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: the proof of my mission is this. If I had
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: been like other men, I should not have neglected all
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: my own concerns, or patiently seen the neglect of them
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: during all these years, and have been doing yours, coming
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: to you individually, like a father or elder brother, exhorting
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: you to regard virtue. Such conduct, I say, would be
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: unlike human nature. If I gained nothing, or if my
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: exhortations had been paid, there would have been some sense
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: in my doing so. But now, as you will perceive,
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: not even the impudence of my accusers dares to say
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: that I have ever exacted or sought pay of any one.
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: Of that They have no witness, and I have a
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: sufficient witness to the truth of what I say my poverty.
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: Some one may wonder why I go about in private
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: giving advice and busying myself with the concerns of others,
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: but do not venture to come forward in public and
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: advise the state. I will tell you why you have
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: heard me speak at sundry times and in diverse places
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: of an oracle or sign which comes to me and
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: is the divinity which moleitest ridicules in the indictment. This sign,
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: which is a kind of voice, first began to come
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: to me when I was a child. It always forbids,
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: but never commands me. To do anything which I am
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: going to do. This is what deters me from being
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: a politician, and rightly as I think, for I am certain,
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: o Men of Athens, that if I had engaged in politics,
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: I should have perished long ago and done no good
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: either to you or to myself. And do not be
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: offended at my telling you the truth. For the truth
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: is that no man who goes to war with you
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: or any other multitude, honestly striving against the many lawless
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: and unrighteous deeds which are done in a state, will
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: save his life. He who will fight for the right,
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: if he would live even for a brief space, must
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: have a private station, and not a publicman. I can
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: give you convincing evidence of what I say, not words only,
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: but what you value far more actions. Let me relate
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: to you a passage of my own life which will
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: prove to you that I should never have yielded to
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: injustice from any fear of death, and that as I
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: should have refused to yield, I must have died at once.
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: I will tell you a tale of the courts, not
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: very interesting, perhaps, but nevertheless true. The only offer state
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: which I ever held, O, Men of Athens, was that
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: of Senator. The tribe Antiochus, which is my tribe, had
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: the presidency at the trial of the generals who had
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: not taken up the bodies of the slain after the
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: Battle of Arguincy, and you proposed to try them in
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: a body contrary to law, as you all thought afterwards.
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: But at the time I was the only one of
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: the pritennes who was opposed to the illegality, and I
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: gave my vote against you. And when the orators threatened
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: to impeach and arrest me, and you called and shouted,
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: I made up my mind that I would run the
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: risk having law injustice with me rather than take part
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: in the injustice, because I feared imprisonment and death. This
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: happened in the days of the democracy. But when the
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: oligarchy of the thirty was in power, they sent for
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: me and four others into the rotunda and bade us
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: bring Leon the Salaminian from Salamis, as they wanted to
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: put him to death. This was a specimen of the
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: sort of commands which they were always giving with the
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: view of implicating as many as possible in their crimes.
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: And then I showed, not in word only, but indeed
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: that if I may be allowed to use such an expression.
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: I cared not a straw for death, and that my
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: great and only care was lest I should do an
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: unrighteous or unholy thing, For the strong arm of that
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: oppressive power did not frighten me to doing wrong. And
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: when we came out of the rotunda, the other four
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: went to Solemis and fetched leon. But I went quietly home,
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: for which I might have lost my life, had not
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: the power of the thirty shortly afterwards come to an end.
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: And many will witness to my words. Now, do you
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: really imagine that I could have survived all these years
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: if I had led a public life, supposing that like
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: a good man, I had always maintained the right and
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: had made justice as I ought the first thing? No, indeed,
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: men of Athens, neither I nor any other man, But
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: I have been always the same in all my actions,
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: public as well as private. And never have I yielded
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: any base compliance to those who are slanderously termed my disciples,
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: or to any other not that I have any regular disciples.
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: But if any one likes to come and hear me
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: while I am pursuing my mission, whether he be young
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: or old, he is not excluded nor do I converse
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: only with those who pay. But any one, whether he
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: be rich or poor, may ask and answer me, and
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: listen to my words. And whether he turns out to
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: be a bad man or a good one, neither resolve
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: can be justly imputed to me. For I have never
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: taught or profess to teach him anything. And if any
• 52:12
  Speaker 1: one says that he has ever learned or heard anything
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: from me in private, which all the world has not heard,
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: let me tell you that he is lying. But I
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: shall be asked, why do people delight in continually conversing
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: with you. I have told you already, Athenians, the whole
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: truth about this matter. They like to hear the cross
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: examination of the pretenders to wisdom. There is amusement in it. Now.
• 52:45
  Speaker 1: This duty of cross examining other men has been imposed
• 52:48
  Speaker 1: upon me by God, and has been signified to me
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: by oracles, visions, and in every way in which the
• 52:56
  Speaker 1: will of divine power has ever intimated to any one.
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: This is true, o Athenians, or if not true, would
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: be soon refuted. If I am or have been corrupting
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: the youth, those of them that are now grown up
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: and have become sensible, that I gave them bad advice
• 53:16
  Speaker 1: in the days of their youth, should come forward as
• 53:19
  Speaker 1: accusers and take their revenge. Or if they do not
• 53:23
  Speaker 1: like to come themselves, some of their relatives, fathers, brothers,
• 53:28
  Speaker 1: or other kinsmen should say what evil their families have
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: suffered at my hands? Now is their time. Many of
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: them I see in the court. There is Crito, who
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: is of the same age and of the same dami
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: with myself. And there is Critobulus, his son, whom I
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: also see. Then again there is Lysanius of Sphatus, who
• 53:52
  Speaker 1: is the father of Eskenesia. He is present. And also
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: there is Antophon of Cesesaphus, who is the father of Epigenes.
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: And there are the brothers of several who have associated
• 54:05
  Speaker 1: with me. There is Nicostratus, the son of Theosdoceates, and
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: the brother of Theodotus. Now Theodotus himself is dead, and
• 54:16
  Speaker 1: therefore he at any rate will not seek to stop him.
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: And there is Perillus, the son of Demodocus, who had
• 54:23
  Speaker 1: a brother Fijis, and Adeimantus, the son of Ariston, whose
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: brother Plato is present. And Eontodorus, who is the brother
• 54:34
  Speaker 1: of Apododorus, whom I also see I might mention a
• 54:38
  Speaker 1: great many others, some of whom Melitus should have produced
• 54:42
  Speaker 1: as witnesses in the course of his speech, And let
• 54:46
  Speaker 1: him still produce them. If he has forgotten, I will
• 54:50
  Speaker 1: make way for him, and let him say if he
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: has any testimony of the sort which he can produce. Nay, Athenians,
• 55:00
  Speaker 1: the very opposite is the truth. For all these are
• 55:03
  Speaker 1: ready to witness on behalf of the corruptor, of the
• 55:07
  Speaker 1: injurer of their kindred as Melitus and Aetas call me,
• 55:12
  Speaker 1: not the corrupted youth. Only there might have been a
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: motive for that. But their uncorrupted elder relatives. Why should
• 55:21
  Speaker 1: they too support me with their testimony? Why indeed, except
• 55:26
  Speaker 1: for the sake of truth and justice, and because they
• 55:29
  Speaker 1: know that I am speaking the truth, and that Meletus
• 55:33
  Speaker 1: is a liar. Well, Athenians, this and the like of
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: this is all the defense which I have to offer.
• 55:43
  Speaker 1: Yet a word more. Perhaps there may be some one
• 55:48
  Speaker 1: who is offended at me when he calls to mind
• 55:51
  Speaker 1: how he himself, on a similar or even a less
• 55:54
  Speaker 1: serious occasion, prayed and entreated the justice with many tears,
• 55:59
  Speaker 1: and how he predu used his children in court, which
• 56:02
  Speaker 1: was a moving spectacle, together with a host of relations
• 56:06
  Speaker 1: and friends. Whereas I, who am probably in danger of
• 56:10
  Speaker 1: my life, will do none of these things. The contrast
• 56:15
  Speaker 1: may occur to his mind, and he may be set
• 56:18
  Speaker 1: against me and vote in anger, because he is displeased
• 56:22
  Speaker 1: at me on this account. Now, if there be such
• 56:26
  Speaker 1: a person among you mine, I do not say that
• 56:29
  Speaker 1: there is to him, I may fairly reply, my friend,
• 56:35
  Speaker 1: I am a man, and like other men, a creature
• 56:38
  Speaker 1: of flesh and blood, and not of wood or stone,
• 56:42
  Speaker 1: as Homer says. And I have a family, yes, and
• 56:46
  Speaker 1: sons o Athenians three in number one almost a man,
• 56:51
  Speaker 1: and two others who are still young. And yet I
• 56:54
  Speaker 1: will not bring any of them hither in order to
• 56:57
  Speaker 1: petition you for an acquittal. And why not not from
• 57:02
  Speaker 1: any self assertion or want of respect for you. Whether
• 57:06
  Speaker 1: I am or am not afraid of death is another
• 57:09
  Speaker 1: question of which I will not now speak. But having
• 57:14
  Speaker 1: regarded a public opinion, I feel that such conduct would
• 57:17
  Speaker 1: be discreditable to myself and to you, and to the
• 57:21
  Speaker 1: whole state. One who has reached my years, and who
• 57:25
  Speaker 1: has a name for wisdom, ought not to demean himself.
• 57:30
  Speaker 1: Whether this opinion of me be deserved or not. At
• 57:33
  Speaker 1: any rate, the world has decided that Socrates is in
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: some way superior to other men. And if those among you,
• 57:41
  Speaker 1: who are said to be superior in wisdom and courage
• 57:45
  Speaker 1: and any other virtue demean themselves in this way, how
• 57:49
  Speaker 1: shameful is their conduct. I have seen men of reputation,
• 57:53
  Speaker 1: when they have been condemned, behaving in the strangest manner.
• 57:58
  Speaker 1: They seemed to fancy that they were going to suffer
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: something dreadful if they died, and that they could be
• 58:05
  Speaker 1: immortal if you only allowed them to live. And I
• 58:09
  Speaker 1: think that such are a dishonor to the state, and
• 58:12
  Speaker 1: that any stranger coming in would have said of them
• 58:16
  Speaker 1: that the most eminent men of Athens, to whom the
• 58:18
  Speaker 1: Athenians sometimes give honor and command, are no better than women.
• 58:24
  Speaker 1: And I say that these things ought not to be
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: done by those of us who have a reputation. And
• 58:31
  Speaker 1: if they are done, you ought not to permit them.
• 58:34
  Speaker 1: You ought rather to show that you are far more
• 58:37
  Speaker 1: disposed to condemn the man who gets up a doleful
• 58:40
  Speaker 1: scene and makes the city ridiculous than him who holds
• 58:44
  Speaker 1: his peace, but setting aside the question of public opinion.
• 58:49
  Speaker 1: There seems to be something wrong in asking a favor
• 58:52
  Speaker 1: of a judge and thus procuring an acquittal, instead of
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: informing and convincing him. For his duty is not to
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: make a present of justice, but to give judgment. And
• 59:04
  Speaker 1: he has sworn that he will judge according to the
• 59:07
  Speaker 1: laws and not according to his own good pleasure. And
• 59:11
  Speaker 1: we ought not to encourage you, nor should you allow
• 59:14
  Speaker 1: yourselves to be encouraged in this habit of perjury. There
• 59:18
  Speaker 1: can be no piety in that. Do not then require
• 59:23
  Speaker 1: me to do what I considered dishonorable and impious and wrong,
• 59:28
  Speaker 1: especially now when I am being tried for impiety on
• 59:33
  Speaker 1: the indictment of belitus. For if o men of Athens,
• 59:38
  Speaker 1: by force of persuasion and entreaty, I could overpower your oaths,
• 59:43
  Speaker 1: then I should be teaching you to believe that there
• 59:45
  Speaker 1: are no gods, and in defending should simply convict myself
• 59:50
  Speaker 1: of the charge of not believing in them. But that
• 59:54
  Speaker 1: is not so far otherwise, For I do believe that
• 59:58
  Speaker 1: there are gods, and in a sense higher than that
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 1: in which any of my accusers believe in them. And
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 1: to you and to God I commit my cause to
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 1: be determined by you as is best for you and me.
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 1: And there are many reasons why I am not grieved, o,
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 1: men of Athens, at the vote of condemnation. I expected it,
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 1: and I am only surprised that the votes were so
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 1: nearly equal, For I had thought that the majority against
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 1: me would have been far larger. But now had thirty
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 1: votes gone over to the other side, I should have
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 1: been acquitted. And I may say, I think that I
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 1: have escaped Meleitus. I may say more, for without the
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 1: assistance of Annias and Lykon, any one may see that
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 1: he would not have had a fifth part of the votes,
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 1: as the law requires, in which case he would have
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 1: incurred a fine if a thousand druct me. And so
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 1: he proposes death as the penalty. And what shall I
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 1: propose on my part, o men of Athens, clearly that
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 1: which is my due and what is my dee? What
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 1: return shall be made to the man who has never
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 1: had the wit to be idle during his whole life,
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 1: but has been careless of what the man he cared
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 1: for wealth and family interests and military offices and speaking
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 1: in the assembly, and magistracies and plots and parties, reflecting
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 1: that I was really too honest a man to be
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 1: a politician and live. I did not go where I
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 1: could do no good to you or to myself, but
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 1: where I could do the greatest good privately to every
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 1: one of you. Thither I went and sought to persuade
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 1: every man among you that he must look to himself
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 1: and seek virtue and wisdom before he looks to his
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 1: private interests, and look to the state, before he looks
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 1: to the interests of the state, and that this should
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 1: be the order which he observes in all his actions.
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 1: What shall be done to such an one, doubtless some
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 1: good thing, O, men of Athens, if he has his reward,
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 1: and the good should be of a kind suitable to him.
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 1: What would be a reward suitable to a poor man
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 1: who is your benefactor and who desires leisure that he
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 1: may instruct you. There can be no reward so fitting
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 1: as maintenance in the Britannium, O, Men of Athens, a
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 1: reward which he deserves far more than the citizen who
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 1: has won the prize at Olympia. In the horse or
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 1: chariot race, whether the chariots were drawn by two horses
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 1: or by many, for I am in want, and he
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 1: has enough, and he only gives you the appearance of happiness,
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 1: and I give you the reality that if I am
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 1: to estimate the penalty fairly, I should say that maintenance
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 1: in the Britannium is the just return. Perhaps you think
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 1: that I am braving you in what I am saying now,
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 1: as in what I said before about the tears and prayers.
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 1: But this is not so. I speak rather because I
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 1: am convinced that I never intentionally wronged anyone, although I
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 1: cannot convince you the time has been too short. If
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 1: there were a law at Athens, as there is in
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 1: other cities, that a capital cause should not be decided
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 1: in one day, that I believe that I should have
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 1: convinced you, but I cannot in a moment refute great slanders.
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 1: And as I am convinced that I never wronged another,
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 1: I will assuredly not wrong myself. I will not say
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 1: of myself that I deserve any evil or propose any penalty.
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 1: Why should I? Because I am afraid of the penalty
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 1: of death, which Melitus proposes. When I do not know
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 1: whether death is a good or an evil, why should
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 1: I propose a penalty which would certainly be an evil.
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 1: Shall I say imprisonment? And why should I live in
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 1: prison and be the slave of the magistrates of the
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 1: year of the eleven? Or shall the penalty be a
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 1: fine an imprisonment until the fine is paid? There is
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 1: the same objection I should have to lie in prison
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 1: for money I have none men cannot pay. And if
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 1: I say exile, and this may possibly be the penalty
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 1: which you will affix, I must indeed be blinded by
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 1: the love of life. If I am so irrational as
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 1: to expect that when you, who are my citizens, cannot
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 1: endure my discourses and words, and have found them so
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 1: grievous and odious that you will have no more of them,
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 1: others are likely to endure me. No, indeed, men of Athens,
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 1: that is not very likely. And what a life I
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 1: should lead at my age, wandering from city to city,
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 1: ever changing my place of exile, and always being driven out.
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 1: For I am quite sure that wherever I go there
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 1: as here, the young men will flock to me. And
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 1: if I drive them away, their elders would drive me
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 1: out at their request, And if I let them come,
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 1: their fathers and friends would drive me out for their sakes.
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 1: Some one will say, yes, Socrates, but cannot you hold
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 1: your tongue? And then you may go into a foreign city.
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 1: No one will interfere with you. Now I have great
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 1: difficulty in making you understand my answer to this, For
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 1: if I tell you that to do as you say
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 1: would be a disobedience to the God, therefore that I
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 1: cannot hold my tongue, you will not believe that I
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 1: am serious. And if I say again that daily to
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 1: discourse about virtue, and of these other things about which
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 1: you hear me, examining myself and others, is the greatest
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 1: good of man, and that the unexamined life is not
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 1: worth living, you are still less likely to believe me.
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 1: Yet I say what is true, although a thing of
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 1: which it is hard for me to persuade you. Also,
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 1: I have never been accustomed to think that I deserve
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 1: to suffer any harm. Had I money, I might have
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 1: estimated the offense at what I was able to pay
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 1: and not have been much the worse. But I have none,
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 1: and therefore I must ask you to proportion the fine
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 1: to my means. Well, perhaps I could afford a mina,
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 1: and therefore I propose that penalty Plato, Creto, Critobulus, and Apollodorus,
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 1: my friends hered me. Say thirty mine, and they will
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 1: be the sureties. Let thirty mini be the penalty, for
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 1: which sum they will be ample security to you. Not
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 1: much time will be gained o Athenians in return for
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 1: the evil name which you will get from the detractors
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 1: of the city, who will say that you killed Socrates
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 1: a wise man. For they will call me wise, even
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 1: though I am not wise, when they want to reproach you.
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 1: If you had waited a little while, your desire would
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 1: have been fulfilled in the course of nature. For I
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 1: am far advanced in years, as you may perceive, and
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 1: not far from death. I am speaking now not to
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 1: all of you, but only to those who have condemned
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 1: me to death, And I have another thing to say
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 1: to them. You think that I was convicted because I
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 1: had no words of the sort which would have procured
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 1: my acquittal. All mean if I had thought fit to
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 1: leave nothing undone or unsaid. Not so. The deficiency which
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 1: led to my conviction was not of words, certainly not.
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 1: But I had not the boldness, or impudence or inclination
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 1: to address you as you would have liked me to
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 1: do weeping and wailing, and lamenting and saying, and doing
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 1: many things which you have been accustomed to hear from others,
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 1: and which, as I maintain, are unworthy of me. I
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 1: thought at the time that I ought not to do
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 1: anything common or mean when in danger. Nor do I
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 1: now repent of the style of my defense. I would
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 1: rather die having spoken after my manner, than speak to
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 1: you in your manner and live. For neither in war,
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 1: nor yet at law, ought I or any man to
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 1: use every way of escaping death. Often in battle, there
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 1: can be no doubt that if a man will throw
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 1: away his arms and fall on his knees before his pursuers,
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 1: he may escape death. And in other dangers there are
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 1: other ways of escaping death if a man is willing
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 1: to say and do anything. The difficulty, my friends, is
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 1: not to avoid death, but to avoid unrighteousness, for that
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 1: runs faster than death. I am old and move slowly,
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 1: and the slower runner has overtaken me, and my accusers
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 1: are keen and quick, and the faster runner, who is unrighteousness,
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 1: has overtaken them. And now I depart, hence condemned by
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 1: you to suffer the penalty of death, They too go
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 1: their ways, condemned by the truth, to suffer the penalty
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 1: of villainy and wrong. And I must abide by my award.
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 1: Let them abide by their I suppose that these things
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 1: may be regarded as fated, and I think that they
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 1: are well. And now, o men who have condemned me,
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 1: I would fain prophesy to you, for I am about
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 1: to die, and in the hour of death, men are
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 1: gifted with prophetic power. And I prophesy to you, who
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 1: are my murderers, that immediately after my departure, punishment far
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 1: heavier than you have inflicted on me, will surely await
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 1: you me. You have killed because you wanted to escape
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 1: the accuser and not to give an account of your lives.
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 1: But that will not be as you suppose, far otherwise,
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 1: For I say that there will be more accusers of
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 1: you than there are now, accusers whom hitherto I have
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 1: restrained than as they are younger, they will be more
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 1: inconsiderate with you, and you will be more offended at them.
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 1: If you think that by killing men you can prevent
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 1: someone from censuring your evil lives, you are mistaken. That
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 1: is not a way of escape which is either possible
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 1: or honorable. The easiest and the noblest way is not
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 1: to be disabling others, but to be improving yourselves. This
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 1: is the prophecy which I utter before my departure to
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 1: the judges who have condemned me, friends who would have
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 1: acquitted me, I would like also to talk with you
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 1: about the thing which has come to pass. While the
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 1: magistrates are busy, and before I go to the place
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 1: at which I must die, stay then a little, for
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 1: we may as well talk with one another while there
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 1: is time. You are my friends, and I should like
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 1: to show you the meaning of this event which has
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 1: happened to me. Oh, my judges, for you I may
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 1: truly call judges. I should like to tell you of
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 1: a wonderful circumstance hitherto the divine faculty of which the
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 1: internal Oracle is the source, has constantly been in the
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 1: habit of opposing me, even about trifles, if I was
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 1: going to make a slip or error in any matter.
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 1: And now, as you see, there has come upon me
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 1: that which may be thought and is generally believed to
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 1: be the last and worst evil. But the oracle made
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 1: no sign of our position either. When I was leaving
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 1: my house in the morning, or when I was on
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 1: my way to the court, or while I was speaking
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 1: at anything which I was going to say. And yet
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 1: I have often been stopped in the middle of a speech,
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 1: but now in nothing I either said or did, touching
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 1: the matter in hand, as the oracle opposed me. What
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 1: do I take to be the act explanation of this silence?
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 1: I will tell you it is an intimation that what
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 1: has happened to me is a good, and that those
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 1: of us who think that death is an evil are
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 1: in error, for the customary sign would surely have opposed
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 1: me had I been going to evil and not to good.
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 1: Let us reflect in another way, and we shall see
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 1: that there is great reason to hope that death is
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 1: a good, for one of two things. Either death is
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 1: a state of nothingness and utter unconsciousness, or, as men say,
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 1: there is a change and migration of the soul from
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 1: this world to another. Now, if you suppose that there
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 1: is no consciousness but a sleep, like the sleep of
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 1: him who is undisturbed even by dreams, death will be
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 1: an unspeakable gain. For if a person were to select
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 1: the night in which his sleep is undisturbed even by dreams,
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 1: and where to compare with this the other days and
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 1: knights of his life? And then were to tell us
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 1: how many days and nights he had passed in the
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 1: course of his life better and more pleasantly than this one,
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 1: I will not say a private man, but even the
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 1: great king will not find many such days or nights
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 1: when compared with the others. Now, if death be of
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 1: such a nature, I say that to die is gain
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 1: for eternity is then only a single night. But if
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 1: death is the journey to another place, and there, as
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 1: men say, all the dead abide, what good, oh, my
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 1: friends and judges, can be greater than this? If indeed,
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 1: when the pilgrim arrives in the world below, he is
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 1: delivered from the professors of justice in this world and
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 1: finds the true judges who are said to give judgment
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 1: there Minos and Rhadamanthus and Acus, and trip to Limus
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 1: and other sons of God who are righteous in their
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 1: own life, that pilgrimage will be worth making. What would
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 1: not a man give if he might converse with Orpheus
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 1: and Mousius and Hesiod and Homer. Nay, if this be true,
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 1: let me die again and again. I myself too, shall
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 1: have a wonderful interest in their meeting and conversing with
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 1: Palamedes and Ajax, the son of Telemann, and any other
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 1: ancient hero who has suffered death through an unjust judgment.
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 1: And there will be no small pleasure, as I think,
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 1: in comparing my own sufferings with theirs. Above all, I
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 1: shall then be able to continue my search into true
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 1: and false knowledge. As in this world, so also in
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 1: the next, and I shall find out who is wise,
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 1: and who pretends to be wise and is not. What
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 1: would not a man give, O Judges, to be able
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 1: to examine the leader of the great Trojan expedition, or Odysseus,
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 1: or Sisyphus, or numberless others men and women too? What
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 1: infinite delight would there be in conversing with them and
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 1: asking them questions? In another world, they do not put
• 1:16:22
  Speaker 1: a man to death for asking questions, assuredly not, for
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 1: besides being happier than we are. They will be immortal
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 1: if what is said is true. Wherefore, O Judges, be
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 1: of good cheer about death, and know of a certainty
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 1: that no evil can happen to a good man, either
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 1: in life or after death. He and his are not
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 1: neglected by the gods, nor has my own approaching end
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 1: happened by mere chance. But I see clearly that the
• 1:16:57
  Speaker 1: time had arrived when it was better for me toy
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 1: and be released from trouble. Wherefore the oracle gave me
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 1: no sign for which reason. Also I am not angry
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 1: with my condemners or with my accusers. They have done
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 1: me no harm, although they did not mean to do
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 1: me any good, and for this I may gently blame them.
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 1: Still I have a favor to ask of them. When
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 1: my sons are grown up, I would ask you, oh,
• 1:17:29
  Speaker 1: my friends, to punish them, and I would have you
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 1: trouble them as I have troubled you. If they seem
• 1:17:36
  Speaker 1: to care about riches or anything more than about virtue,
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 1: and if they pretend to be something when they are
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 1: really nothing, then reprove them as I have reproved you,
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 1: for not caring about that for which they ought to care,
• 1:17:51
  Speaker 1: and thinking that they are something when they are really nothing.
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 1: And if you do this, both I and my sons
• 1:17:59
  Speaker 1: will have received eaved justice at your hands. The hour
• 1:18:04
  Speaker 1: of departure has arrived, and we go our ways. Aye
• 1:18:10
  Speaker 1: to die and you to live. Which is better? God
• 1:18:16
  Speaker 1: only knows and of apology by Plato