Plato's Apology of Socrates you - UNC Charlotte …s Apology of Socrates Translated by James...

Plato's Apology of Socrates

Translated by James Redfield

[17a] I don't know how you felt about the prosecution, gentlemen; as for me I

almost forgot myself, their speech was so convincing. And yet as far as truth goes,

they said pretty nearly nothing. But of all the lies they told there was one that really

amazed me, where they said you had to be careful not to let me fool you, because I

am such a powerful speaker. For them to have no shame that the facts would

immediately prove them wrong when I turn out not to be powerful at all—this I

thought was really the limit of shamelessness on their part—unless they mean by

"powerful speaker" someone who tells the truth; if that's what they are saying, I

would admit to being—though not in their style—an orator.

[17b] However, as I was saying, while they said little or nothing that was

true, from me you will hear the whole truth—but for god's sake, gentlemen, not

with the language all fixed up, like their speeches, with phrases and vocabulary in

their fancy clothes; you will hear me talking casually with whatever words come

along—because I believe what I am saying is right—so no one should expect

anything else. After all, it would hardly be appropriate for a man of my age to come

before you like these young people with their made-up stories

[17c] Which brings me to one thing, gentlemen, that I really do want you to

allow me: if you hear me defending myself with the same kind of talk I normally

© 2003 by James Redfield, The University of Chicago 2

talk in the marketplace by the bankers' tables,† where many of you have heard me,

and other places, don't be shocked and interrupt me just for that. Because this is

how it is: although I am now seventy years old, today I come before a law court for

the very first time, so I am really like a foreigner when it comes to this kind of

talking. You know if I really were a foreigner you would take it easy on me if I used

the dialect and the manners I was brought up with, so in the actual case, I have this

request—perfectly just, I think—that you don't concern yourself with the manner of

my speech—maybe it is worse, or it might even be better—but the one thing I want

you to keep in mind and to pay attention to is this: is my case just or isn't it? Because

that is the special excellence of a judge, while an orator is supposed to tell the truth.

[18a] First of all, gentlemen, I am justified in defending myself against the

first false prosecution, against my first prosecutors, and then against the one that

came after and the people that came with it. Because, you see, I have had many

prosecutors before you; and for a long time, for many years now, they have been

telling you things that are not at all true. And I am much more afraid of them than

of Anytus and his crowd, although these also are powerful people. But, gentlemen

those are even more powerful; they got hold of most of you when you were still

children and convinced you and accused me of a lot of things no more true than the

other, saying "There is somebody named Socrates who is a wise man; he's an

intellectual concerned with the heavens; and he has investigated everything beneath

the earth; also he makes the worse case the stronger." These, gentlemen, the people

who have spread this rumor around, these are my really powerful prosecutors. For

† trapezo n=tables; apparently those belonging to people who changed money and so on—certainly not bankers in our sense.


people who hear such things suppose that people engaged in such research do not

believe in the gods either. Furthermore, these prosecutors are numerous, and they

have been conducting their prosecution for a long time already. And then they

spoke to you when you were of an age most likely to believe them, when you were

children, some of you, and young people; and it was literally a prosecution by

default, since there was no one to defend me. Worst of all, I am not even able to

know and to tell you their names—unless one of them is actually a comic poet.†

Those who employed envy and prejudice to convince you—some people got

convinced and then went out and convinced others—all these people are really

impossible; I can't put them on the stand here or cross-examine them, but I have to

literally shadow-box my defense, and cross-examine people who won't answer me.

Anyway, as I say, I want you to understand that there are two sets of prosecutors,

one set who are prosecuting now, and then the other long-standing set I'm telling

you about, and I want you to accept that I have to defend myself against them first,

because you heard their prosecution first, and much more intensely than the current

lot.

[18e] OK. In this little time let me defend myself, gentlemen, let me try to

clear out the prejudice you have held for so long. I only wish I could do it—if that

would be better for you and for me—then I do wish I could get somewhere with my

defense. Still, I accept that it will be hard; I'm not closing my eyes to the facts. All

the same, let that be as it may please the god; I must obey the law and make my

defense.

† He refers to Aristophanes; see next note.


[19a] So let us take up from the beginning the prosecution that produced the

prejudice against me, that gave Meletus the confidence to enter his indictment. OK.

What do the prejudiced say to produce prejudice against me? We have to read it

aloud, as if it were the formal charge of prosecutors: "Socrates is a criminal and a

busybody. He seeks things beneath the earth and in the heavens, and he makes the

weaker case the stronger, and he teaches other people to do these things." It's

something like that. You yourself have seen these things in the comedy of

Aristophanes—some kind of Socrates dangling there and saying he treads the air†

and talking a lot of other nonsense that is not even slightly within my competence.

Not that I mean to despise this kind of knowledge, if someone has this kind of

wisdom—I hope I would never be prosecuted by Meletus on a charge as serious as

that!—but, gentlemen, I am not mixed up in anything like that. As my witnesses I

offer most of you, and I ask as many of you as have ever heard me conversing to

teach one another and say—since many of you have heard me—tell each other if you

ever heard me conversing about such matters even slightly—and from this you can

figure that all the other things most people say about me are just the same kind of

stuff.

[19d] Anyway, there's nothing in any of that; also, it's untrue if you heard

from somebody that I try to educate people and make money for it. As far as that

goes, I think it a fine thing if somebody like Gorgias of Leontini or Prodicus of Ceos

or Hippias of Elis is able to educate human beings; any of these can go into any city,

and convince the young people—who can hang around with any of their own

citizens absolutely gratis—they convince them to leave that crowd and hang around

† This phrase is quoted from the Clouds of Aristophanes.


with themselves instead, and pay for the privilege, and feel grateful to boot. And

there is another wise man from Paros that I see is in town. In fact, I ran into a man

who has spent more money on sophists than all the rest of them put together,

Callias, son of Hipponicus; and I asked him (you know, he has two sons): "Callias" I

said, "if your sons were colts or calves you would be able to get a trainer for them

and pay somebody to teach them what is really worth knowing, with the

appropriate kind of excellence. And this would be, I suppose, one of the horse

people, or one of the farmers. But as it is, since they actually are human beings, who

do you have in mind to get for their trainer? When it comes to this kind of

excellence, of a human being and a citizen, who knows about that? I suppose you

must have looked into this, since you have sons. Is there anybody, I ask, or isn't

there?" "Oh sure," he said. "Who is it?" I said, "Where is he from? What's the price of

his teaching?" "Evenus," he said, "Socrates, he's a Parian, and his price is five mnæ."†

And I felt like congratulating Evenus if he really had this art and taught it at such

reasonable rates. If I knew how to do this myself, I would think myself a superior

person and would patronize all and sundry; but, gentlemen, I don't know it.

[20c] Now maybe one of you might ask, "Well, Socrates, what is your

business? Where does this prejudice against you come from? Because after all, if you

were not a peculiar sort of person in the way you spend your time, this kind of

rumor and story about you would never have gotten started, if you didn't do

anything different from most people. So tell us what it is, so that we don't just

condemn you out of hand." Now that seems to me a very fair question, and I will try

† One mna was equal to one hundred drachmae, and since a drachma was the wage of a semiskilled laborer for one day the mna had a value of approximately $5000 in today's terms.


to show you how I got this name and what produced the prejudice. So just listen.

Maybe some of you will think I am joking, but please understand: I am telling you

the complete truth. I got this name, gentlemen, for no other reason than through

some kind of wisdom. What kind of wisdom is it? The kind, maybe, that is human

wisdom, because, really, I probably am wise in just that way. Those other people,

the ones I was just now talking about, might be wise with some wisdom greater

than human, or else…I don't know what. Anyway, I don't know anything like that

and anybody who says I do is lying and trying to make you prejudiced. And now,

gentlemen, don't interrupt what I'm going to say, even if you think I'm boasting.

Because this is not mine, the tale that I tell;† I'm going to give you a reliable source.

On the issue of my wisdom—what it is, what kind it is—I call to witness the god in

Delphi.

[20e] Now, you probably all knew Chærephon. He was my companion from

childhood, and he was your companion, one of the popular party; he went into exile

with you, and he came back with you.†† You know the kind of person Chærephon

was, how impetuous he was, whatever he set out to do. Well once he actually went

to Delphi, and had the nerve to ask the oracle—please remember, don't interrupt

me, gentlemen—he asked if there was anyone wiser than me. The answer came

from the Pythia that no one was wiser. And about all this his brother here will be

your witness, since the man himself is dead.

† This phrase is from Euripides' (lost) play The Wise Melenippe; with it the heroine introduced a story which she got from a god.

†† This means that Chaerephon left Athens during the oligarchic "tyranny" (something like what we know as a junta) of the Thirty. We shall hear more of them later in the speech.


[21b] Now you'll see why I am telling you all this. I'm going to explain how

the prejudice against me got started. Once I had heard this, I thought it over like

this: "What on earth does the god mean, and whatever is his riddle? Because I know

in my heart that I am not even slightly wise, so what on earth does he mean calling

me wisest? He wouldn't be lying; they don't let him do that!* " For a long time I was

baffled: what on earth did he mean? Then at long last I began to inquire into him,

more or less like this. I went to a person thought to be wise, with the idea that here,

if anywhere, I would refute the prophesy, and that I was going to show the oracle:

"this man here is wiser than me, but you said I was." So I looked into this person—I

don't have to tell you his name, he was one of the political people—and when I

looked into him I had the following experience, gentlemen, when I was talking to

him; it seemed to me that this man seemed wise to many other people, and most of

all to himself, but that he was not. So then I tried to show him that he thought he

was wise but was not. At that point he became irritated with me, and so did many

of those present. So I went away thinking to myself: "I really am wiser than this

person. Probably neither of us knows anything really worth knowing, but this one

thinks that he knows, although he doesn't, whereas I, just as I don't know, don't

think that I do." So it seemed that by just this small amount I was wiser than him, in

that what I did not know, I did not think that I knew. From there I went to another

of those who are thought to be wise, and I came to the same conclusion; and on that

occasion also he and many others became irritated with me.

* The Greek says: that is not themis for him." Themis (cognate with the Latin fas) is a word for what is proper or lawful, with special implications of relation to the sacred law.


[21e] Starting here I went on to one after another; I noticed—and I was

sorry—and even afraid—that I was being irritating. All the same, I thought I had to

make the god the first priority; I had to go on, looking into what the oracle meant, to

all those thought to know anything. By the dog,* gentlemen—because I have to tell

you the truth—I swear this was my experience: those with the greatest reputation

seemed to me nearly the most lacking when I inquired on behalf of the god, while

there were others thought pretty average types who turned out to be somewhat

superior in their intelligence.

[22a] Now I must tell you of my quest, as if I were performing labors† only

to find my oracle after all irrefutable. After the statesmen, I went to the poets, poets

of tragedy and dithyramb and so on, thinking that here I was going to catch myself

in the very act of being stupider than they were. Taking up their poems, those which

seemed to me to be most carefully worked out, I would ask them what they might

mean—so that at the same time I might learn something. Gentlemen, I am ashamed

to tell you the truth; however, it must be told. Practically any one of the bystanders

could speak better than they could about their own work. So it didn't take me long

to see through the poets also: they do not make their work by wisdom, but by some

kind of talent and by inspiration, like the seers and the oraclemongers. These

people, too, say many things, wonderful things, but they know nothing about what

they are saying. And it seemed to me that the poets had the same experience, and at

the same time I noticed that because of their poetry they thought themselves very

* This peculiar oath is characteristic of Socrates in the Dialogues. It probably originated with the Orphics.

† The reference here is to Heracles.


wise people in general, which they were not. So I went away thinking that I was

better off than they, just as with the statesmen.

[22c] Finally, then, I went to the craftsmen, because I knew in my heart that I

know practically nothing, but these I knew I would find knowing many and

wonderful things—and I was not deceived; they knew things I did not know, and in

this way they were wiser than I. But, gentlemen, they seemed to me to make the

same mistake that the poets made, these fine craftsmen. Because they had worked

out their art so well, each of them claimed also to be wisest on other topics, on the

most important things; and this immodesty of theirs overshadowed their wisdom,

so that I asked myself on behalf of the oracle whether I would prefer to be as I am,

neither wise with their wisdom nor ignorant with their ignorance, or to have both

things they have, and then I answered myself—and the oracle—that I was better off

to stay as I am.

[22e] When I examine people this way, gentlemen, I annoy them a lot—in the

worst way, the most depressing, producing all kinds of prejudice against me—so I

get called this name, "wise," because each time the bystanders think I am wise about

whatever is the topic of my refutation. In all likelihood, gentlemen, god is really

wise, and this is what he means by his oracle: that our human kind of wisdom is

worth little or nothing. And it turns out that this is what he means by "Socrates": he

is using my name, taking me as a kind of example, as if someone would say,

"Humankind, that one among you is wisest who, like Socrates, realizes that in truth

he is worth nothing in relation to wisdom." So, for my part, even now I still go

around on behalf of the god and identify for my research anyone, citizen or

stranger, whom I might think to be wise; and when he seems to me not to be so, in

alliance with the god I show him that he is not wise. And because this keeps me


constantly busy I have never had the time to take any part in public life worth

mentioning, nor to manage my own property; actually I am totally broke because of

my volunteer work for the god.

[23c] Furthermore, the young men who follow me around, the ones who

have the most spare time, the sons of the richest families—they follow me quite

spontaneously, as they enjoy hearing people being examined, and a lot of times they

imitate me and then they try to examine others. At that point I suppose they find

absolutely no shortage of people who think that they know something but actually

know little or nothing. And then the people they examine become angry—not with

themselves, but with me—and they say, "There is some kind of Socrates, scum of the

earth, who corrupts the youth"; and when somebody asks them what he does and

what he teaches, they don't know what to say. They are stuck. Then so people won't

think they have nothing to say, they bring out the usual charges about the

philosophers, things about the heavens and beneath the earth, and not believing in

the gods and making the worse reason the stronger.

[23d] The truth is what I don't suppose they'd ever be willing to admit, that

they have been exposed as pretending to know and knowing nothing. Given that

they are reputable people, I suppose, and fervent, and numerous, and that they

never quit and are quite convincing about me, they have filled your ears these many

years, and made the prejudice very strong. Meletus is one of this bunch, and

Anytus, and Lycon—Meletus representing the poets in their irritation, Anytus

representing the craftsmen and the political people, and Lycon representing the

orators. So—as I said at the beginning—I would be surprised if I were able to root

out so much prejudice in such a little bit of time, now that it has become so great.

Nevertheless, gentlemen, this is the plain truth, and I am not holding back the


slightest bit when I tell you this, nor have I trimmed my sails. I am nearly sure that I

am right now irritating these very same people, which is proof that I speak the truth,

and that this is the prejudice against me, and its cause. Whether you look into it now

or later, you will find it so.

[24b] Concerning the prosecution brought by my first prosecutors, then, this

should be an adequate defense before you. But in response to this superior fellow

Meletus, this self-styled patriot, and to the recent set, I will now try to make a

defense. So once again, as if this were another prosecution, let us take up their

deposition. It goes something like this: "Socrates," he says, "is a criminal corrupting

the youth, and he does not observe the gods whom the city observes, but rather new

spiritual things." That is the complaint, and of this complaint let us examine each

separate point.

[24c] He says that I am a criminal corrupting the young. But I, gentlemen,

say that Meletus is a criminal because he's playing at serious things and brings

people to trial in a lighthearted way, pretending to be serious and full of tender

concern about things that matter† to him not at all. The truth of this I will now try to

demonstrate. Come here, Meletus, and tell me: is it true that you have made the

absolute goodness of the young people your highest priority?

"It is."

† The Greek verb used here—melein—contains the same root as that in the name of Meletus. Therefore here and in the succeeding section Socrates is actually punning, as if the name of his prosecutor were Mr. Matterman


[24d] Now tell these people, who makes them better? Obviously you know,

since it matters to you. You have identified their corrupter—me, as you say—and

you bring me before these people and prosecute me. The one who makes them

better—come on, tell us, be our informant about that person. You see, Meletus, you

are silent—you don't know what to say. Don't you think it's shameful and a

sufficient proof of what I was saying that none of this has ever mattered to you?

Come on, friend, who makes them better?

"The laws."

[24e] But I wasn't asking you that, my fine friend, but what person—who, in

the first place, knows this very thing, the laws?

"These people, Socrates, the jurors."

What do you mean, Meletus? Can these people educate the young and make

them better?

"Yes."

All of them? Or some of them, and not the others?

"All of them."

Good news, by Hera—no shortage of improvement! What about the

spectators—do they make them better or don't they?

"They do too."

What about the members of the council?


"The councillors too."

[25a] Well, Meletus, I don't suppose you are going to tell us that the people in

the Assembly—the members of the Assembly—that they corrupt the young? Or do

they also make them better, all of them?

"They too."

So it turns out all Athenians except for me make people the right sort of

people, and I alone corrupt them, is that what you're saying?

"That is exactly what I'm saying."

Well, you've certainly assigned me more than my fair share of misfortune.

But answer me this: is the case of horses like that? They get better by people in

general but some one person corrupts them? Or isn't it quite the opposite: there's

some one person who is able to make them better, or very few people, people who

understand horses, but most people corrupt horses if they spend time with them

and use them? Isn't that the way it is, Meletus, with horses and all other animals?

Yes it is, whether you and Anytus agree or not. It certainly would be a great stroke

of good luck in the case of the young people if there was some one person alone

who corrupted them and everybody else was making them better. You see, Meletus,

you have made it perfectly clear that you've never even thought about the young

people and you've revealed that your method has no matter, that this charge on

which you've brought me to trial matters to you not at all.

[25c] Next question, by god, Meletus: is it better to live with good citizens or

wicked ones? Answer me, mister; I'm not asking a hard question. Do not the wicked

harm those who happen to be in their neighborhood, whereas the good do good?


"Yes."

[25d] Is there anybody who wants to be harmed by his companions rather

than benefited? Answer, friend, the law requires you to answer! Is there anybody

who wants to be harmed?

"No there isn't."

Now then. Did you bring me here as one who corrupts the young and makes

them more wicked intentionally or unintentionally?

"Intentionally is what I say!"

[25d] How so, Meletus? Are you at your age so much wiser than I am at my

age that you have figured out that bad people do something bad to those who are

closest to them, and good people do good; whereas I have arrived at such perfect

ignorance that I don't even know that if I make one of my companions vicious he

will probably hurt me, so that I intentionally, as you say, make this bad thing

happen? I am not convinced, Meletus, and I doubt anybody else would be. Either I

do not corrupt them, or if I do corrupt them, I do it unintentionally, so in either case

you're lying. And if I corrupt them unintentionally, the law does not bring people

here for that kind of error; rather you should take me aside in private and explain it

to me, reprove me. Obviously once I get it, I will stop what I am doing

unintentionally. But you have avoided my company; you haven't wanted to explain

things; instead you brought me here, a place provided by the law for people

requiring punishment, not insight.

[26a] However, gentlemen, by this time my point is made, that these things

never mattered even the slightest bit to Meletus. All the same, another question:


how do you say I corrupt them Meletus, these young people? Or isn't it clear,

according to the indictment you composed, that it's by teaching them not to believe

in gods that the city believes in, but to believe in other new spiritual things? You

mean that by teaching this I corrupt them?

"That's just exactly what I do say."

[26b] Now in the name of the very gods we're talking about, Meletus,

explain it a little more clearly to me and to these people here. I really don't get it. Do

you say that I teach people to believe that certain gods exist—not, however, the gods

the city believes in, but different ones, so that I myself do believe in gods and am

not altogether an atheist, I am not a criminal in that sense—but your complaint is

that they are different? Or do you say I don't believe in gods at all, and teach other

people that?

"That's what I say, that you do not believe in gods at all."

[26d] Meletus, this is truly amazing! What are you trying to say? Don't I

believe that the sun and the moon are gods, the way most people do?

"No he doesn't, gentlemen of the jury! He says that the sun is a stone and

that the moon is earth!"

[26d] Do you think you are prosecuting Anaxagoras, my dear Meletus? Or

have you such contempt for these people, and do you think them so illiterate as not

to know that the books of Anaxagoras of Clazomenæ are full of this kind of talk?

And then the young people are supposed to learn these things from me, which they


could get anytime for a drachma—at the most—from the orchestra† by making a

purchase there, and then they could laugh at Socrates if he pretended that this was

his own doctrine, especially as it's really pretty peculiar. However, before god, this

is your position, that I don't believe in any god?

"No he doesn't, by Zeus, not any one at all!"

[26e] Well this is unbelievable, Meletus, and I can't even think you believe it!

My view, gentlemen, is that this person is brutal and out of control; and that he has

composed this indictment with a certain kind of out-of-control brutality and

immaturity; and it's put together like a riddle, as if he were teasing us: "Will

Socrates, this wise man, understand that I am having fun and that I am

contradicting myself? Or can I get away with this in front of him and everybody

watching us?" Because it's obvious to me that he's contradicting himself in his

indictment. It's as if somebody would say: "Socrates is a criminal believing in gods

but not believing in gods!" That really has to be a joke.

[27a] Join me, gentlemen, in examining the obvious; and you, Meletus,

answer our questions. And please, all of you, just as I asked you in the beginning,

remember not to interrupt me if I talk in my normal manner.

[27b] Is there any person, Meletus, who believes in human things but does

not believe in humans? Let him answer, gentlemen, don't make all these various

interruptions! Is there anybody who does not believe in horses but believes in

horsey things? Or does not believe in the existence of flute players but believes in

† The orchestra was the name of a sector of the marketplace, apparently where books were sold.


flute-playing things? Well, there isn't, you know! If you don't want to answer, I will

speak for you, and for all these other people. But do answer me this question at

least: is there anybody who believes that there are spiritual things but no spirits?

"No there isn't."

[27c] Well, thank you very much, you did finally answer me when these

people made you do it. Now you say that I believe in and teach spiritual things—

whether they're new or old, at least some kind of spiritual things according to your

account—and you swore to that in your formal indictment. And if I believe in

spiritual things, then I suppose it's absolutely necessary I have to believe in spirits!

Isn't that true? Yes it is. I'm going to put you down as agreeing with me since you

won't answer. Now, those spirits—don't we suppose that they are either gods or the

children of gods? Do you agree or not?

"Yes I do."

[27d] Surely if I suppose there are spirits, as you say, and if spirits are some

kind of gods, that would be what I say is the riddle you're having fun with, when

you say that I don't suppose there are gods, and then again suppose there are, since I

suppose there are spirits. But if in turn spirits are children of gods, some kind of

bastards, or by nymphs, or some other kinds of ways they tell us—what person

could suppose the children of gods exist and not gods? That would be just as

peculiar as if someone supposed that children of horses and donkeys exist, mules—

but not horses and donkeys! Meletus, the only explanation is that you're teasing us

in the way you composed this indictment, or else you had no idea how to complain

of any true crime. Because how in the world could you convince anybody who had

even the smallest grain of sense that the same person could suppose that spiritual


and even divine things exist, and also suppose that spirits or gods or heroes do not?

There's just no way you could do it.

[28a] Well, gentlemen, I don't think it requires much of a defense that I have

committed no crime according to Meletus' indictment; this is really enough.

However, as I told you in the beginning, there is plenty of irritation against me—

and it's everywhere, believe you me! That's what will convict me, if I am convicted,

not Meletus nor Anytus, but the prejudice of the people and their hostility. It has

already convicted many good men, and I suppose it will convict more; there is no

danger of it's stopping with me.

[28b] Perhaps then someone is going to say, "Aren't you ashamed, Socrates,

of living a lifestyle that puts you at risk of your life?" The answer I would have to

give him is this: "You're wrong, my friend, if you think a man who's worth anything

is supposed to worry about the danger of life or death; there is only one thing we

have to keep track of as we act, whether the action is just or unjust, whether it is the

act of a good man or a bad man. Because by your kind of argument, those demigods

who died in Troy would be contemptible, particularly the son of Thetis, who so

much despised danger in comparison to enduring any shame. You know when his

mother said to him in his eagerness to kill Hector—and she was a goddess—

something like this, as I remember: 'Child, if you avenge your friend Patroclus, and

his murder, and you kill Hector, you yourself will die. 'straightway', she said, 'after

Hector's, your fate is ready.'† And when he heard this about death and danger, he

ignored it. He was much more afraid to live as a coward, and not get revenge for his

† Iliad 18.96.


friend. 'Straightway,' he said, 'let me die, bringing justice to the criminal, so that I

may not linger, mocked at by the hollow ships as a burden on the earth'††. You don't

think he was worried about death and danger?"

[28d] That's the way it is, gentlemen, in truth. Wherever someone has posted

himself, supposing it best, or wherever he has been posted by his commander, there

he must stand his ground, I think, in the face of danger, and not take into account

death or anything else next to shame. It would be pretty bizarre behavior,

gentlemen, if when my commanding officers posted me somewhere, the people

whom you elected to rule over me in Potidæa and Amphipolis and Delium, then I

held the position where they posted me—just as we all did, and I ran the risk of

death; but when god has posted me somewhere, as I thought and understood him,

that I was under orders to live philosophizing, examining myself and other people,

then I would fear death or anything else whatsoever and leave the ranks. That

would be bizarre, and might truly justify bringing me before the law court on a

charge of disbelief in gods, because I disobeyed the oracle and was afraid of death

and therefore supposed I was wise when I was not.

[29a] Because to be afraid of death, gentlemen, is nothing else than to seem

to be wise when one is not, because it is to seem to know what one does not know.

Nobody knows about death. Maybe it is the greatest good thing that can happen to a

person; but people fear it as if they knew well that it was the worst possible thing.

This has to be the most disgraceful ignorance, that of thinking that you know what

††Iliad 18. 98 & 104.

†


you do not know. And I, gentlemen, just right here, maybe, differ from most men;

and if I would admit to be wiser in any way than anyone else, it would be in this: I

not only don't know much about the next world, I am also aware that I don't. But to

be a criminal, to disobey my superior, god or man, that is bad and shameful—this I

do know. Therefore as an alternative to an evil that I know to be evil, when

threatened with what I don't know—with what might even be good—I will never be

afraid, nor will I run away. So let's suppose you acquit me now, paying no attention

to Anytus—who said that I should never have come here in the first place but that

since I did come here, you absolutely have to kill me, telling you that if I get away at

this point, your sons will all adopt the life-style I supposedly teach, and they'll all be

corrupted—let's suppose you respond like this: "Socrates, we are not convinced by

Anytus. We let you go—on one condition, however: on the condition that you no

longer pass your time in this investigation or philosophize. If you are ever caught

doing it again you will die." Well just suppose, as I say, you were to let me go on

this condition, then I would say to you: "Gentlemen, I am fond of you, I like you; but

I would rather obey the god than you; and as long as I draw breath and am able, I

am not going to stop philosophizing and warning you and making my point to any

one of you I happen to run into. I will go on saying the kind of things that I always

do say, such as: 'My friend, you are an Athenian, your city is the greatest and most

famous for wisdom and for strength; aren't you ashamed to worry about money,

getting as much as you can, and about prestige and status, instead of intelligence

and truth and the soul, getting it to be the best it can be? You don't worry about that,

you don't even think about it.'" And if someone wants to argue with me and say that

he does worry about it, I'm not going to release him right off, or go away, but I will

ask him and I will examine him and I will refute him, and if I think he has not

acquired excellence but says he does, I will abuse him because he has his priorities


wrong and makes trivialities important. It won't matter if he's younger or older, I'll

do this with anyone I meet, foreigner or citizen—but especially the citizens, because

you are family. That's what the god told me to do, I want you to understand that;

and I think the best thing that ever happened to this city is my service to the god,

because the only thing I do wherever I go is convince each of you, younger and

older, not to worry about your body or your money but first to worry about your

soul, to get it to be the best it can be; saying that it is not money that makes

excellence, but excellence that makes money and all other good things good for

people, in their private and public lives. And if by saying that I corrupt the youth, it

must be bad for them; but if someone says that I say anything else, he's talking

nonsense. So then I would say, gentlemen, either Anytus can convince you or not,

you can acquit me or not, but understand that I am not going to do anything else,

not if you were to kill me many times.

[30c] Don't interrupt me, gentlemen. but stick by the rule I asked of you, that

you don't interrupt what I have to say, but listen to it. Actually in my opinion it

would do you good to listen. I am going to say some other things now that might

start you yelling; but just don't do it. I want you to know that if you kill me—kill the

kind of person I'm talking about—it'll hurt you more than it hurts me. They won't

hurt me, Meletus or Anytus, they can't; in my opinion it is not admissible for a better

man to be hurt by a worse one. They could kill me, I suppose, or send me into exile,

or take away my rights, but these things—well, maybe somebody else might think

they are great evils, but I don't think so; it is a much worse thing to do what these

people are now doing when they take a man and unjustly try to kill him.

[30d] You know, gentlemen, I'm not really making my own defense here, far

from it; I am here to defend you against making a mistake about god's gift to you by


convicting me. For if you do kill me, you will not easily find my replacement. I am

literally (if it's not too ridiculous to put it this way) stuck on the city by the god, as if

on a big, whopping horse that because of its size is rather sluggish and needs to be

waked up by a horsefly or something—it seems to me the god has sent me to the

city to be something like that fly; I wake you and convince you, and criticize each

and every one of you, and am constantly at it, all day long, settling all over you. A

replacement for that kind of person you're not going to get so easily, gentlemen; I

want to convince you to conserve me. Here perhaps you're getting irritated, the way

people do when they're waked up from a nap; you're ready to give me a slap, as

Anytus advises, and casually kill me, and then the rest of your life you can go on

sleeping—unless in his concern for you the god sends you somebody else.

[31a] I can produce some evidence that I really am like this, and am a gift of

the god to the city. There is something supernatural about my general self-neglect,

the way I've stood it so many years neglecting my property, that I have always done

what you needed, going around to each of you as if I were your brother or your

father, trying to convince you to worry about excellence. If I had gotten anything out

of it and been paid for my advice it would have made some sense, but you will

notice that even my accusers in all their barefaced accusations have never been so

barefaced as to provide a witness that I ever made any money from anybody or

asked for it, and I can provide you with a perfectly adequate witness that I am

speaking the truth: my poverty.

[31c] Perhaps someone may think it strange that I remain in private practice

when I go about giving advice and mind everybody else's business, but in public

I'm never so bold as to come before the people and advise the city. The reason is the

one I've explained to you so many times: that something divine or spiritual does


happen to me—Meletus made a grotesque reference to it in the language of his

indictment. I have (it started in childhood) some kind of voice that comes to me, and

when it comes it always keeps me from doing something I was going to do, it never

tells me to do anything. This is what has kept me out of politics, and I think it did

very well to keep me out. I want you to understand, gentlemen, that if I had long

since tried to do the business of politics I would long since be dead, of no use to

anybody, not even myself. Don't get irritated with me for telling the truth; actually

no human being can survive in opposition to you or with any other populace if he

chivalrously tries to prevent all kinds of unjust and illegal things from going on in

the city; anyone who really fights for justice, if he is going to survive any time at all,

must necessarily stay in private practice and not become a public figure.

[32a] Furthermore I can provide you with substantial evidence of all this, and

not mere talk but what you value: facts. So just listen to what happened to me so

that you can know that I would never make any concessions to anyone on a matter

of right and wrong because I was afraid to die. I would never surrender, I would

rather perish. I'm going to tell you the kind of stupid story people tell in law suits—

but at least mine is true! I, gentlemen, never held any other office in the city but I

was a member of the council†; and it so happened that my tribe, Antiochis, was in

the chair when you put on trial the ten generals who had not picked up the

survivors of the sea battle, and you wanted to judge them all in a bunch, illegally, as

† The executive of the city of Athens was a council of five hundred chosen by lot; fifty members were chosen from each of the ten tribes. Each of these fifty served as the presiding group, the prytaneis, in turn. During their time as the presiding committee these fifty were divided into thirds—seventeen or sixteen each—who were on duty in eight-hour shifts; one shift ate dinner in the Prytaneion, and another shift slept there. This was to make certain that someone would be there to represent the city in any emergency.


you all understood later—but then I was the only one of the presiding committee

who tried to keep you from acting illegally, and I voted against it.†† And then some

of the orators were quite ready to indict me and arrest me; and you were egging

them on and yelling about it, but I thought I had to stand with law and justice and

take my chances, rather than stand with you, when your deliberation was unjust,

because I was afraid of prison or death. And that was while the city was a

democracy. And then there was an oligarchy, and the Thirty sent for me to be in

charge of a group of five.† They brought me into the committee room, and they told

me to go to Salamis and arrest Leon of Salamis to be executed, the kind of thing they

did to many other people at that time because they wanted to involve as many

people as possible and infect them with their crimes. I proceeded to give not a

verbal but a practical demonstration that I am not worried one scrap about death, if

you'll excuse the expression; but when it comes to wrongdoing or impiety, then I am

totally worried. I was not intimidated by that regime (although it was a pretty rough

crowd) to the point of committing a crime; I went away from the committee room

and the other four went off to Salamis.†† They arrested Leon; but I just went home.

†† After the battle of Argineusae—an Athenian victory in the last years of the Peloponnesian war—there was a severe storm which prevented the Athenians from picking up survivors from the wrecks; many drowned. Eight of the ten generals (not all ten, as Socrates says) were charged with criminal neglect, and of these six were tried at Athens (two had run away); they were tried as a group, which seems to have been illegal, convicted, and executed.

†

† After the Athenian defeat which concluded the Peloponnesian War the Spartans installed in Athens an oligarchic regime of Thirty; the Athenians never forget the cruelty of this regime.

††Committee room=tholos, the room in which the prytaneis met. It is as if a military dictatorship had taken over the oval office.


And probably I would have died for that if the regime hadn't fallen pretty soon. Of

all this you will have many witnesses.

[32e] So do you think I would have lasted all these years if I had gotten

involved in public affairs and had acted there as a good man should, in alliance

with justice, and (as we all should) had made this my highest priority? No I

wouldn't, gentlemen; nor would any other man. As for me, take my whole life,

whatever I did in public life you'll see I'm the same; and in private just the same

person, never making any concession to anybody that was wrong, no, not with any

of those people they slander me about, and say were my students. Actually, I was

never anybody's teacher. When I was talking and doing what I do, if somebody

wanted to hear me, young or old, I never held out on them, nor did I converse with

people who paid me, and not with those who didn't; but just the same with rich,

with poor, I offered myself for questioning or to question somebody if he wanted to

answer my questions and hear what I had to say.† And if somebody became good—

or didn't—as a result, it's not fair to blame me, since I never promised anybody

anything ever as a lesson, nor did I teach. And if someone says that he ever heard

from me anything in private different from what everybody heard when we were

all together, you have to know that he is not telling the truth.

[33b] But why in the world is it, then, that certain people have enjoyed

spending a lot of time with me? I told you, gentlemen, I already gave you the whole

truth about that. It's because they enjoy hearing people being examined who think

† Some editors interpret the sentence thus: "wanted to hear what I had to say when questioned" (the syntax is somewhat ambiguous). I believe that the point of the sentence is that Socrates said what he had to say indirectly, by questioning others.


they are wise but are not. It is pretty enjoyable. As for me, I'm trying to tell you, I

have been instructed by the god to do this, through oracles, through dreams, and in

every way in which any divine disposition has ever instructed any human being to

do anything. This, gentlemen, is not only true but easily checked. For if I in fact

corrupt some of the young men and have corrupted others, then it should be—

shouldn't it?—that when some of them became older and realized that when they

were young I had given them some kind of bad advice, now they would come up

here and accuse me and try to punish me. Or if they didn't want to do it themselves,

then some of their families—their fathers, their brothers, other people who are

related to them—if I had made something bad happen to their relatives, they would

bring it up now and try to get me punished. Anyway, there are a lot of them here in

court, as I see; first of all, there's Crito, we were children together, from the same

neighborhood—he's the father of Critobulus here; Lysanias from Sphettus, father of

Aeschines over there; also here's Antiphon of Cephisis, father of Epigenes. Then

there are these others, whose brothers spent their time that way: Nicostratus, son of

Theozotides, brother of Theodotus—you know Theodotus is dead, so he could not

be holding back his brother—and Paralius, here son of Demodocus, whose brother

was Theages. I could mention Adeimantus, son of Ariston; there is his brother Plato;

and Aeantodorus, whose brother was Apollodorus; and many others I could

mention—Meletus really should have called them in his speech as witnesses; but if

he forgot, well, let him call them now—I yield the floor—and let him tell us if he's

got anybody like that. You will find that it's just the opposite, gentlemen; they're all

ready to support me, their corrupter, the man who—according to Meletus and

Anytus—has injured their relatives. As for those who are themselves corrupted, it

might make some sense that they are on my side, but those who are uncorrupted,

who are already older people, their own relatives—what reason would they have to


support my speech other than righteousness and justice, that they know Meletus is

lying and I am telling the truth?

[34b] Okay, gentlemen. What I would have to say in my defense is pretty

much that and more of the same. Now maybe one of you is going to feel irritated

because he remembers his own case when he was on trial on some less serious

charge than this one—how he implored you, supplicated the judges, shed floods of

tears, put his children up on the stand to produce maximum pity, produced other

family and friends in crowds—and I'm not doing any of these things, although my

danger, people might think, is of the worst. Maybe some one of you, thinking of all

that would get arrogant and rageful about it and would vote out of rage. Now, if

any of this applies—I don't think it should, but if—the decent thing to say to him, it

seems to me is this: "Well, friend, I also have some relatives, and as the line says in

Homer, I was not born 'from an oak or a rock,' but from human beings, so that I

have family—sons actually, gentlemen, three of them; one is already a young man,

the other two are boys—but just the same I'm not going to bring any of them up here

and plead with you to acquit me." Why not, you may ask? Well, it isn't from

arrogance, gentlemen, nor from any disrespect for you—but as to how I feel about

death, well, that's another story—but as far as my reputation goes, and yours, and

that of the whole city, I don't think it looks good to do any of these things, especially

at my age, with the name I have; whether it is true or false, people do at least think

that Socrates is a little different from most people. And if those of you who are

supposed to be special in wisdom or courage or in any other kind of excellence are

going to be like that, it looks bad. I have many times seen this person or that, when

they are on trial—people supposed to be really somebody—doing the most amazing

things, evidently thinking something absolutely terrible was going to happen to


them if they died, as if they were going to live forever if only you would not kill

them. I think they make the whole city look bad; even somebody from out of town

might get the idea that these special Athenians, people of excellence, people they

themselves have singled out for official positions and honored in other ways, these

notables are no different from women. Well gentlemen, the people who are

supposed to amount to something shouldn't do this to you, and if we do do it you

shouldn't let us. You ought to make this perfectly clear: you will convict those who

stage these pitiable melodramas and make the city ridiculous, rather than those who

keep the peace.

[35b] Setting aside the question of reputation, gentlemen, it does not seem

right to plead with a judge, nor to get off by pleading, but rather to teach and

persuade. That is not why a judge sits up there—to hand out justice as a favor—but

to adjudicate the matter. Also, he has sworn not to give favors whenever he feels

like it, but to judge according to the laws. Surely we should not get you used to

breaking your oaths, nor should you get used to it; it's not pious behavior for either

of us. Please, gentlemen, do not ask me to do things which I do not think look good,

that are not right, or pious, especially—in god's name—when I am, after all, fighting

a charge of impiety by Meletus here. It seems pretty clear: if I manage to convince

you and, by begging, even force you against your oath, I would be teaching you to

think there are no gods, and I would literally accuse myself by my defense, guilty of

not believing in gods. However it is quite otherwise; I do believe in them,

gentlemen, as no one of my accusers does, and I entrust to you and to god to

adjudicate my case in whatever way is going to be best for me and for you.


[35e] I'm not going to make myself particularly miserable, gentlemen, about

what has happened here—that you convicted me—for a number of reasons, mainly

that there was nothing unexpected about what happened. I'm actually more

surprised about the vote count, how close it was; I would have thought it wouldn't

be that close, but more one-sided. As it is, it seems that if only thirty votes had

changed sides I would have been acquitted.† So I think I was acquitted in relation to

Meletus—not only acquitted, but it's really pretty clear that if Anytus and Lycon

hadn't come down here to accuse me he would have had to pay the thousand

drachmæ for not getting twenty per cent of the votes.

[36b] Anyway, he proposes a penalty of death. OK, what counter-penalty

shall I propose to you, gentlemen? Obviously, what I deserve. What is that? What do

I deserve to suffer or to pay because for some reason I was never in my life able to

keep the peace, because I didn't worry about the things most people worry about:

money, and housekeeping, and wars, and public speeches, and various offices—and

conspiracies and sedition when we were having that? I really thought better of

myself than to seek my personal security that way, and so I never put myself in

places where I would have been absolutely no use to you or myself; I went around

privately to each of you as your benefactor—none better, I'd claim—trying to

convince each of you not to worry about anything he owned before worrying about

himself, making himself the best and brightest person he could, and not to worry

about anything belonging to the city before worrying about the city itself, and to

worry about everything else the same way—what do I deserve to get for being that

† Since the jury was (apparently) of 500, the vote must have been 280 to 220 (a tie meant an acquittal).


kind of person? Something good, gentlemen, if I am truly to receive my just deserts.

Furthermore it should be an appropriate good thing. And what is appropriate to a

poor man, your benefactor, who has given all his time to your instruction? I can't

think of anything more appropriate for such a person gentlemen, than to dine with

the government—much more than somebody who with one or two or four horses

wins at Olympia.†. He makes you seem happy, I make you actually happy; he does

not need looking after, but I do. So if I'm going to be sentenced to what in all

fairness I deserve, I would pick that: to dine with the government.

[37a] Maybe in what I've just said some of you may think that I talk pretty

much the way I did when I talked about pity and about pleading, that I'm arrogant.

Actually that's not right, gentlemen; it's really more like this: I am convinced that

nobody ever does wrong on purpose—but I won't convince you of that, because

we're only talking together a little while. However in my opinion I could convince

you if we had a law, as some other people do, that on a capital charge you can't

judge it in one day but several. The way we do it it's not easy in such a rush to get

rid of such gigantic prejudice. Anyway, I am convinced that I have committed no

crime, so I am certainly not going to behave criminally toward myself and tell you

that I deserve something bad and propose it as my sentence. What am I supposed to

be afraid of? That I'll get what Meletus proposes as my sentence? I've already told

you I don't know whether that is good or bad, so instead of that should I choose

something I know perfectly well is bad and propose that as the penalty? Maybe

imprisonment? But why should I live in a prison, slave to whoever is put in charge

† Those specially honored by the Athenian state were invited to dine with the section of the prytaneis who dined in the Prytaneion—and a few specially honored individuals received a standing invitation as a lifetime privilege.


of it, to the committee on executions? Or maybe money, and then be imprisoned

until I pay it? But that's really just the same as the other, because I don't have any

money to pay with. Or shall I propose a sentence of exile? That is a sentence you

might even accept. However, gentlemen, I would really be hanging on for dear life

if I could talk myself into thinking that whereas you, my fellow citizens, couldn't

stand my lifestyle and my arguments, and they made you so depressed and hostile

that now you're trying to get rid of me, nevertheless some other people are going to

be able to stand me better. It's pretty implausible, gentlemen. So that would be a fine

life for a man of my age, changing around from one city to another, a life of constant

rejection. I have to understand that wherever I go the young men will listen to me

talk just the way they do here. And if I reject them, they will convince their elders to

reject me; if I don't reject them, their fathers and their relatives will do it on their

behalf.

[37e] Now somebody might say, "Why don't you shut up and keep still,

Socrates? Couldn't you live elsewhere that way?" That is just the hardest thing to

convince you about. If I call this disobedience to the god and say that's why I can't

keep still, you'll be unconvinced, you'll think I'm being ironic. But suppose I say that

in fact the greatest good for mankind is this: every day to discuss excellence and all

the other things that you hear me discussing, examining myself and others, and that

an unexamined life is no kind of human life—these things would be even less

convincing when I say them. They are as they are, as I claim, gentlemen; but not

obvious.

[38a] Anyway, I am not in the habit of thinking I deserve anything bad. If I

had any money, I would propose a penalty of money, some amount that I could

pay—since that wouldn't do me any harm. However I don't have any—unless


there's some amount I could pay, and you're prepared to accept that as a sentence. I

suppose I could pay one mna in silver, so I propose that for my sentence.

[38b] Oh, Plato here, and Crito, Critobulus, and Apollodorus—they tell me to

propose a penalty of thirty mnæ and they themselves will guarantee it. So I'll

propose a sentence of that amount, and they can be guarantors to you for the money;

they're certainly good for it.

[38c] You haven't gained much time, gentlemen, and in exchange you'll have

the name and the charge by people who want to insult the city, that you killed

Socrates, a wise man—for they will call me wise, even if I am not, the people who

want to deride you—whereas if you just waited a little while, what you want would

have happened of its own accord. You can see how old I am, far along in life and

close to death. I'm not talking to all of you, but to those who voted for my death,

and I have more to say to the same people. Maybe you think, gentlemen, that I was

condemned because I couldn't come up with convincing arguments, assuming that I

was ready to say and do whatever it took to be acquitted. Far from it. I was

condemned because I couldn't come up with—not arguments—I couldn't come up

with the effrontery, the shamelessness; I couldn't bring myself to tell you the kind of

things that you really like to hear—weeping and wailing and carrying on, and

saying certain things that are really beneath me, I would claim—what you're used to

hearing from other people. At that time, though, I did not think that because of the

danger I should do something unworthy of a free man, nor have I changed my mind

now about the kind of defense I made; I would much rather defend myself that way

and die than some other way and live. In a lawsuit, or in a war, the idea for me or


anybody else is not to come up with some smart move, whatever it takes, and avoid

death. In a battle, too, lots of times there is some obvious way not to die—by

abandoning your weapons and throwing yourself on the mercy of the people who

are after you. And there are all kinds of other moves you can make, in any kind of

danger, to escape death, if you really have the stomach for doing and saying

whatever it takes. Possibly this is not the difficult part, gentlemen, escaping death;

the difficulty is with wickedness. It runs quicker than death. And now I, who am so

old and slow, have been taken by the slower runner, and my accusers, who are so

clever and quick, have been taken by the swifter runner, by evil. And now I am

going away, sentenced by you to death, and they go away sentenced by truth to bad

character and vice. I will endure my sentence, and so will they. Maybe things had to

be this way, and I suppose it's pretty much all right.

[39c] Next I desire to prophesy to you, you who convicted me, I am at the

place where people do prophesy, at the point of death. I want to tell you, gentlemen,

you who are killing me, that you will have a penalty immediately upon my death,

much more severe, by god, than the one with which you kill me. You do this now

thinking that you get out of the cross-examination of your lives; but as I see it the

result will be quite the opposite. Many people will cross-examine you, people I kept

back, although you never noticed. And they will be harsher because they are

younger, and they will make you miserable. If you think that by killing people you

can discourage them from denouncing the righteousness of your life, you need to

think again. You can't get out of it that way; it can't be done and would look bad if it

could. There is, however, another way that looks very good and is easy: not to

penalize others, but to get ready to be the best person you can. For those who

condemned me this is my prophesy, and I am done with you.


[39e] But you who voted to acquit, I would be very glad to talk to you about

this event that just took place, while the authorities are busy and I don't yet go

where I have to go to die. Please, gentlemen, stay with me a little while. Nothing

prevents us from telling each other stories while we can. I count you my friends,

and so I am ready to explain what has happened, what it means. Because, my

judges—when I call you judges you deserve the name—a strange thing happened. I

am by now used to this prophetic spiritual sign which has come so often in my life,

and absolutely opposed me about trivialities if I was on the point of doing

something not right. Here things have turned out for me as you yourselves see, this

thing here that somebody might think and believe to be the worst of evils—but

when I left the house in the morning the divine sign never opposed me, nor when I

came up here to the law court, nor anywhere in my speech with anything I was

going to say. And yet, other times when I was talking it has often opposed what I

was saying, often in the middle of it; in this case neither in fact nor in word did it

ever oppose me. What do I take to be the explanation? I will tell you. Probably what

has happened here is something good, and there is no way that we can rightly

understand it, as many of us as think that it is a bad thing to die. I have strong

evidence for this. It absolutely would have opposed me, my usual sign, if I weren't

going to experience something good.

[40c] Let us think this way about the considerable hope that it is something

good. It is one of two things, dying. Either it is like having no awareness of anything

when you're dead, or, as people tell us, it is some kind of transfer and change of

address for the soul from the place where we are into some other place. And if it is

no awareness at all but is like a sleep slept out without any dreams, then death

would be a great gain. In my opinion, if somebody could pick out a night he slept so


deeply that he had no dreams, and then took all the other nights and days of his life

and put them up against that night, and then were asked how many of those days

and nights had been better and more pleasant than that night, in his whole life—and

I don't just mean a private person, but take the great king of Persia—it would be

very few days that he could find, or nights, that would be better than that. So if

death is like that, in my opinion it's a great gain. All of time would appear no more

than a single night.

[40e] But if it's like going to another country, death, or into another place, and

the things that they tell us are true, that all the dead people are there, what could be

a greater good thing than that, my judges? For if when we come into Hades we get

away from the people who are here called judges, and there find the real judges (we

are told they do the judging there, Minos and Rhadamanthys, Aeacus and

Triptolemus, and all the other demigods who were just in their own lives)—that

would be no minor excursion. Or again, to get to know Orpheus and Musæus,

Hesiod and Homer—how much would you pay for that? I would be willing to die a

lot of times if all of that is true. For in my case I think that would be the most

wonderful way for me to pass my time there; when I would meet Palamedes or

Telamonian Ajax or any of the other people of the old time who died through some

kind of unjust judgment; I could compare my experience with theirs—that would be

pretty enjoyable, in my opinion. Then comes the best part: to carry on testing and

inquiring into the people there, just like those here—who is wise, and who thinks he

is but isn't? What would it be worth to you, gentlemen, to be able to examine the

commander in the Trojan War, that great army, or Odysseus, or Sisyphus, or ten

thousand other men and women I could mention? To talk to them there, and pass

time with them, and examine them—wouldn't that be an amazing happiness? And


after all, the people who are there couldn't kill you for it. People there are generally

happier than people here, and they have the special advantage of being immortal

once they get there, if what we are told is true.

[41c] Anyway, my judges, you should be of good hope about death, and keep

in mind this one truth: it is not possible for anything bad to happen to a good man,

either in life or in death, and his acts are never neglected by the god. My present

situation has not happened by accident; it is obvious to me that the time has come

for me to die and to be done with trouble, and this is better for me. And that is why

the sign never turned me back. And so I am not really so angry with the people who

convicted me, and with the prosecution—although this is not what they had in mind

when they accused and convicted me; they thought they were going to harm me; I

do have the right to hold that against them.

[41e] I have this one request of them: when my sons come of age, be hard on

them, giving them just the same kind of trouble that I gave you—if they seem to you

to worry more about money or anything rather than excellence, and if they think

they amount to something when they don't, keep after them, just as I did with you,

that they don't worry about the right things, and that they think they amount to

something when they are really worthless. And if you do this, you will be treating

us justly, myself and my sons. But now it is already time to go away, I to die, you to

live; but which of us goes to the better fate, that is dark to us all—except god.

A Note on the Translation

The Apology of Socrates is a literary work by Plato, based on a real historical

event. Socrates was prosecuted by Meletus, Anytus, and Lycon for corrupting the

young and bringing in new gods, he did give a speech in his own defense which


was notable for its arrogance—there seems to have been general agreement that if he

had given a more accommodating speech he would have been acquitted—and he

was convicted and executed. Plato's work is true to these facts, which are virtually

the only uncontested facts about the case. Hotly contested is the relation of Plato's

work to the speech Socrates actually gave; considering Plato's generally cavalier

attitude toward historical fact I doubt if the relation is close. Plato's aim (in my

view) was not to preserve the words of the Socrates who had died, but to create a

new Socrates, the martyr of philosophy, who would live forever.

Nevertheless in order to achieve that purpose—in order to replace the general

memory of Socrates with the image he had created—Plato had to create the illusion

of historical actuality. Partly this is done though the style of the speech, which is

composed very much as if it were being improvised, off-the-cuff. Right at the

beginning, in fact, "Socrates" describes his own style as ordinary, just the way he

always talked "by the banker's tables"; he contrasts it with the carefully worked-up

speeches which were usual in the law courts. When he says he is not "powerful"

(deinos) he is of course lying; this is one of the most powerful and skillfully

organized and orchestrated speeches ever composed. But in a superficial sense he is

telling the truth; the power is generated through a casual offhand tone—varied only

when, as in the cross-examination of Meletus, he adopts some of the peculiar usage

which was beginning to develop within the philosophical community (e.g. "Is there

anybody who does not believe in horses but does not believe in horsy things?"—a

sentence which sounds as odd in Greek as in English.

My aim in this translation has been to create the effect of a transcript, since I

think that was what Plato was trying to do. (He had never seen a transcript—

shorthand was not invented until the 17th century—but he had a remarkable ear for


the actualities of spoken Greek, and I think he knew exactly what a transcript would

look like.) The sentences of the Apology sometimes balloon with added clauses, or go

back and start over, very much as in the improvised speeches with which we are

familiar. On the other hand, we don't want Socrates to sound inept, like an

Eisenhower news conference; he is being represented as an absolute master of the

improvised speech. Socrates' literary quotations are also translated by me from the

Greek.

I translate everything into American, which is my native tongue. I make this

point because there is a diffuse feeling around that the classics, because they are

important and cultural, must sound British; reviewers still speak of translations as

"marred by Americanisms." Possibly in reaction to this kind of linguistic bigotry I

have here made a self-conscious effort to eliminate anglicisms, which are actually

frequent in my own personal speech (I grew up an anglophile and was educated

partly at Oxford). Probably a few got through anyway; I apologize.

The themes of the translation, then, are American improvisation. Let us see

how this works out in practice, taking the first sentence as an example. Here is the

transliterated Greek with something like a literal translation, clause by clause:

Hoti men humeis what you for your part o andres athe naioi O men of

Athens peponthate have experienced hupo to n emo n kate goro n by the

agency of my accusers ouk oida I don't know. ego d'oun I, though, kai autos

even myself hu'auto n by their agency oligou nearly emautou epelathome n

failed to notice myself houto so pithano s persuasively eire kasin they have

spoken.


In this sentence Socrates associates himself with the jury, as part of the

prosecution's audience, and at the same time separates himself from them. He

speaks as one who comes out of a daze, swept away by the rhetoric of his opponents

to such a degree that he actually forgot its danger to himself. In this way Socrates

succeeds as representing the power of their speeches (which he acknowledges to

have been considerable) as purely æsthetic, fictional; he is about to go on to

characterize his own work as factual. This is a kind of judo trick whereby the power

of the opposition is turned against them; the more their speeches impressed you, he

is telling the jury, they less attention you should pay to them; I am claiming, not

merely to be right, but to be giving the only kind of speech which deserves any

attention at all.

Here is my shot at it: [17a] I don't know how you 1 felt2 about3 the

prosecution4, gentlemen5; as for me6 I almost forgot myself7, their speech8 was so

convincing9.

Notes:

l) Greek has a set of "particles" (men in this phrase is a particle) which mark

logical and emotional shifts and connections. The most accurate way to reflect these

in English is through tone of voice; the italics are intended to do the job on paper.

2) This verb means "experience, undergo"; I went for the vernacular here.

3) peponthate is treated in Greek as a passive; passives take agent clauses

with hupo. On a language exam somebody might write: "were made to experience

by the accusers" and would be marked correct; that's not my idea of translation.


4) kate goroi are private citizens making a criminal complaint; they file the

charges and make the speeches seeking conviction. "Prosecution" admittedly sounds

too much like Marcia Clark, but "accusers" has to me a poetic or mythical tone which

is equally out of place. A translator has to make a choice on this sort of thing, and

then stick to it. Similarly:

5) Socrates uses the address form: "O men of Athens" many times in this

speech (sometime he just calls them "men"). It was conventional in the Athenian law

courts—as was o andres dikastai,, "men who are judges", a phrase Socrates refuses

to use until the very last part of his speech, when he talks to those who voted for

acquittal—and has no vernacular equivalent in American that I could find. I settled

on "gentlemen"—which is by now quite antique—because I needed something. (The

alternatives were to leave it out, significantly changing the rhythm of the speech, or

to go for something totally weird, like "Athenians.")

6) Five words reduced to three (d' and oun are particles) and hu'auto n is not

translated at all. So shoot me.

7) The Greek verb epelathome n means "I escaped the notice of"; it is one of

those verbs (like English "like") in which the semantic subject becomes in the surface

structure a verb complement ("it pleases me" become "I like it"; similarly: "I didn't

notice myself" becomes "I escaped the notice of myself"). There is no problem about

making the transformation; that is part of the translator's job. More dubious is the

idiom I adopted, since "forget myself" means not what it literally seems to say, but

rather than I lost control—and this sense is not in the Greek. Shoot me again. I

thought the slight play on words was very much in the Socratic spirit, and when so


much of the spirit disappears in the translation it seemed OK to add something. But

I admit I don't like this when other translators do it.

8) A noun for a verb; we translators do this all the time.

9) pithano s is on the same root as peitho , a notion usually translated in

English as "persuasion". It has however implications of "consent" and "gaining

consent." I decided to go for "convince" as the most American alternative—and once

again, I stuck with that decision throughout.

Translation is a myriad of little solutions, some more successful than others. I

have provided a few notes at the points where I thought I was being particularly

outrageous. There is no such thing as a literal translation; if you want to know what

the Greek says go learn the language. It's really not that hard.

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