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substantiall y identical with that which is now about to engage our attention , was actually delivered by Socrates at his trial ; and that Plato , in . this case , aimed only at being a faithful reporter of what his master had thought fit to say in his own vindication , when prosecuted for his life on the accusation of corrupting the youth , and of being an unbeliever in the gods of his country . *
An abstract , such as those we gave of the three dialogues which have successively occupied our attention , would entirely fail to give any conception of this singular performance : and after some consideration , we have resolved upon attempting an exact translation . It would , however , require a Plato , so to translate Plato as to render the ideas intelligible to an English reader ,, in
the exact shape in which they were presented by an Athenian speaker to an Athenian audience , preserving , at the same time , all the energy and beauty of the style . We have been obliged to confine ourselves to one or the other object : either to put something like the matter of this discourse into the best English we could command , sacrificing all that is characteristic of the manner of
Socrates , and of the notions and feelings of the Athenian public ; or else , to retain the very thoughts of Socrates , and his very mode of stating and illustrating those thoughts , but to exchange Plato ' s eloquent Greek for an English style at once bald and verbose . We have preferred the latter course , as more conducive to the objects we have in view in these papers . A .
Speech of Socrates before his Judges . In what manner , O Athenians , you have been affected by my accusers , I know not ; I myself , in listening to them , almost forgot that I was myself , so plausibly did they speak . Although , of what they said , not one word , I may say , was true . Among the many falsehoods which they told you , one in particular excited my astonishment ; when they said that vou should beware lest you be deceived by me , who am a
powerful speaker . Yory their not being ashamed to be immediately contradicted by the fact , when 1 am seen to be not at all a powerful speaker , appeared to me most shameless . Unless , indeed , they call him a powerful speaker who speaks the truth . If so , I admit myself to be an orator of a different kind from them . They , as I affirm , have spoken no truth ; from me you will hear ail the truth . Not , indeed , O Athenians , a speech like theirs , all tricked out with fine words and phrases : what I Bay , will be said unstudiedly , in such words as offer themselves . For I
am convinced that all which I say is just ; none of you need expect any thing else oi' me . Nor would it become these years , O Athenians , to appear before you spinning phrases like a stripling . And this , O Athenians , I especially solicit of you ; that if you hear me make my defence in the very same style of language in which I am accustomed to speak in the streets and public places , where most of you have heard me , and elsewhere , you will neither be surprised nor clamorous . For the fact is this : At the age of seventy and more , I now for the first time appear in a court of justice ; I am , therefore , a complete stranger to the ways
* The sentiments both of Schleierraacher and of Mr . Thirlwall may be found at full length in the sixth number oi the ' Piiiiolocricftl Museum /
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Plato ' s Dialogues ; the Apology of Socrates . 113
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No . 98 . ' K
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Feb. 2, 1835, page 113, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2642/page/33/
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