Plato's Apology 38 C - 39 BSocrates' Final Remarks to the JuryIntroduction | |
It is no long time, men of Athens,
which you gain, and for that those who
wish to cast a slur upon the state will
give you the name and blame of having
killed Socrates, a wise man; for, you
know, those who wish to revile you will
say I am wise, even though I am not.
Now if you had waited a little while,
what you desire would have come to
you of its own accord; for you see
how old I am, how far advanced in life
and how near death. I say this not to all
of you, but to those who voted for my
death. And to them also I have
something else to say. Perhaps you
think, gentlemen, that I have been
convicted through lack of such words
as would have moved you to acquit
me, if I had thought it right to do and
say everything to gain an acquittal. Far
from it. And yet it is through a lack that
I have been convicted, not however a
lack of words, but of impudence and
shamelessness, and of willingness to
say to you such things as you would
have liked best to hear. You would
have liked to hear me wailing and
lamenting and doing and saying many
things which are, as I maintain,
unworthy of mesuch things as you
are accustomed to hear from others.
But I did not think at the time that I
ought, on account of the danger I was
in, to do anything unworthy of a free
man, nor do I now repent of having
made my defence as I did, but I much
prefer to die after such a defence than
to live after a defence of the other sort.
For neither in the court nor in war
ought I or any other man to plan to
escape death by every possible means.
In battles it is often plain that a man
might avoid death by throwing down
his arms and begging mercy of his
pursuers; and there are many other
means of escaping death in dangers of
various kinds if one is willing to do and
say anything. But, gentlemen, it is not
hard to escape death; it is much harder
to escape wickedness, for that runs
faster than death. And now I, since I am slow and old, am caught by the slower runner, and my accusers, who are clever and quick, by the faster, wickedness. And now I shall go away convicted by you and sentenced to death, and they go convicted by truth of villainy and wrong. And I abide by my penalty, and they by theirs. Perhaps these things had to be so, and I think they are well. | Student name: |