The Apology of Socrates : How you have felt, O men of Athens - to - but I am in utter poverty by reason of my devotion to the god.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
The Apology of Socrates by Plato in the translation by
Benjamin Jowat. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings
are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer,
please visit LibriVox dot org. Recording by Father Zili of Detroit, Michigan.

(00:33):
Part one of the Apology of Socrates by Plato.

Speaker 2 (00:41):
How you have felt, o, men of Athens, at hearing
the speeches of my accusers? I cannot tell, but I
know that their persuasive words almost made me forget who
I was. Such was the effect of them. And yet
they have hardly spoken a word of truth. But many
as their falsehoods were, there was one of them which

(01:04):
quite amazed me. I mean, when they told you to
be upon your guard and not to let yourself be
deceived by the force of my eloquence. They ought to
have been ashamed of saying this, because they were sure
to be detected as soon as I opened my lips
and displayed my deficiency. They certainly did appear to be

(01:26):
most shameless in saying this, unless by the force of
eloquence they mean the force of truth. But then I
do indeed admit that I am eloquent, but in how
different a way from theirs. Well, as I was saying,
they have hardly uttered a word, or not more than
a word of truth. But you shall hear from me

(01:49):
the whole truth, not, however, delivered after their manner in
a set oration, duly ornamented with words and phrases. No, indeed,
but I shall use the words and arguments which occurred
to me at the moment. For I am certain that
this is right, that at my time of life, I
ought not to be appearing before you, o men of Athens,

(02:11):
in the character of a juvenile orator. Let no one
expect this of me, and I must beg of you
to grant me one favor, which is this, if you
hear me using the same words in my defense which
I have been in the habit of using, and which
most of you may have heard in the Agorah and

(02:33):
at the tables of the money changers, or anywhere else,
I would ask you not to be surprised at this,
and not to interrupt me, for I am more than
seventy years of age, and this is the first time
that I have ever appeared in a court of law,
and I am quite a stranger to the ways of
the place, and therefore I would have you regard me

(02:56):
as if I were really a stranger, whom you would
if he spoke in his native tongue and after the
fashion of his country. That I think is not an
unfair request. Never mind the manner, which may or may
not be good, but think only of the justice of

(03:16):
my cause, and give heed to that. Let the judge
decide justly, and the speaker speak truly. And first I
have to reply to the older charges and to my
first accusers, and then I will go on to the
later ones. For I have had many accusers who accuse
me of old and their false charges have continued during

(03:41):
many years. I am more afraid of them than of
Anietas and his associates, who are dangerous too in their
own way. But far more dangerous are these who began
when you were children and took possession of your minds
with their falsehoods. Telling of one Socrates, a wise man

(04:02):
who speculated about the heavens above, and searched into the
earth beneath, and made the worse appear the better. Cause
these are the accusers whom I dread. So they are
the circulators of this rumor, and their hearers are too
apt to fancy that speculators of this sort do not
believe in the gods. And they are many, and their

(04:25):
charges against me are of ancient date, and they made
them in the days when you were impressible in childhood,
or perhaps in youth, and the cause when heard by default,
for there were none too answer. And hardest of all
their names I do not know, and cannot tell unless

(04:47):
in the chance of a comic poet. But the main
body of these slanders, who from envy and malice have
brought upon you, and there are some of them who
are convinced themselves and impart their convictions to others. All these,
I say, are most difficult to deal with, for I

(05:08):
cannot have them up here and examine them. And therefore
I must simply fight with shadows in my own defense
and examine. When there is no one who answers. I
will ask you then to assume with me as I
was saying, that my opponents are of two kinds, one recent,

(05:29):
the other ancient. And I hope that you will see
the propriety of my answering the latter first, For these
accusations you heard long before the others, and much oftener. Well,
then I will make my defense. I will endeavor in
the short time which is allowed, to do away with

(05:50):
this evil opinion of me which you have held for
such a long time. And I hope I may succeed
if this be well for you and me, and that
my words may find favor with you. But I know
that to accomplish this is not easy. I quite see

(06:10):
the nature of the task. Let the event be as
God wills. In obedience to the law, I make my defense.
I will begin at the beginning and ask what the
accusation is which has given rise to this slander of me,
and which has encouraged militias to proceed against me. What

(06:32):
do the slanderers say? They shall be my prosecutors, and
I will sum up their words in an affidavit. Socrates
is an evil doer and a curious person who searches
into things under the earth and in heaven, and he
makes the worse appear the better cause, and he teaches

(06:54):
the aforesaid doctrines to others. That is the nature of
the accusation, and that is what you have seen yourselves
in the comedy of Aristophanes, who has introduced a man
whom he calls Socrates going about and saying that he
can walk in the air, and talking a great deal
of nonsense concerning matters of which I do not pretend

(07:16):
to know either much or little. Not that I mean
to say anything disparaging of any one who is a
student of natural philosophy. I should be very sorry if
Melitus could lay that to my charge. But the simple
truth is, o Athenians, that I have nothing to do
with these studies. Very many of those here present are

(07:38):
witnesses to the truth of this, and to them I appeal. Speak, then,
you who have hurt me, and tell your neighbors whether
any of you have ever known me to hold forth
in few words or in many upon matters of this sort.
You hear their answer, and from what they say of

(07:58):
this you will be able to judge of the truth
of the rest. As little foundation is there for the
report that I am a teacher and take money. That
is no more true than the other. Although if a
man is able to teach, I honor him for being paid.
There is Gorgias of Leontium, and Protocus of Chaos, and

(08:22):
Hippeus of Ellis, who go the round of the cities
and are able to persuade the young men to leave
their own citizens by whom they might be taught for nothing,
and come to them, whom they not only pay, but
are thankful if they may be allowed to pay them.
There is actually a hurryan philosopher residing in Athens, of

(08:44):
whom I have heard, and I came to hear of him.
In this way I met a man who has spent
a world of money on the sophists, Callius, the son
of Hipponicus, And knowing that he had sons, I asked him, Callius,
I said, if your two sons were foals or calves,

(09:04):
there would be no difficulty in finding someone to put
over them. We should hire a trainer of horses, or
a farmer, probably, who would improve and perfect them in
their own proper virtue and excellence. But as they are
human beings, whom are you thinking of placing over them?
Is there anyone who understands human and political virtue? You

(09:27):
must have thought about this, as you have sons. Is
there anyone there is? He said? Who is? He said I?
And of what country? And what does he charge? Evanous
the Parian, He replied, he is the man, and his

(09:48):
charge is five My name happy is Evanous, I said
to myself, If he really has this wisdom and teaches
at such a modest charge, had I the same, I
should have been very proud and conceited. But the truth
is that I have no knowledge of the kind o Athenians.

(10:08):
I dare say that someone will ask the question, why
is this Socrates, and what is the origin of these
accusations of you? Or there must have been something strange
which you have been doing all this great fame and
talk about you would never have arisen if you had
been like other men. Tell us then why this is?

(10:29):
As we should be sorry to judge hastily of you.
Now I regard this as a fair challenge, and I
will endeavor to explain to you the origin of this
name of wise and of this evil fame. Please attend then,
And although some of you may think I am joking,
I declare that I will tell you the entire truth.

(10:52):
Men of Athens, This reputation of mine has come of
a certain sort of wisdom which I possess. If you
ask me what kind of wisdom, I reply, such wisdom
as is attainable by man. For to that extent I
am inclined to believe that I am wise, whereas the
persons of whom I was speaking have a superhuman wisdom

(11:14):
which I may fail to describe, because I have it
not myself. And he who says that I have speaks
falsely and is taking away my character. And here o,
men of Athens, I must beg you not to interrupt me,
even if I seem to say something extravagant, or the
word which I will speak is not mine. I will

(11:37):
refer you to a witness who is worthy of credit,
and will tell you about my wisdom, whether I have
any and of what sort, And that witness shall be
the God of Delphi. You must have known Caeraphon. He
was early a friend of mine and also a friend
of yours, for he shared in the exile of the

(11:58):
people and returned with you.

Speaker 1 (12:01):
Well.

Speaker 2 (12:01):
Charaphan, as you know, was very impetuous in all his doings,
and he went to Delphi and boldly asked the oracle
to tell him whether, as I was saying, I must
beg you not to interrupt. He asked the oracle to
tell him whether there was any one wiser than I was,
And the Pythian prophetess answered that there was no man wiser.

(12:26):
Charaphon is dead himself, but his brother, who is in court,
will confirm the truth of this story. Why do I
mention this because I am going to explain to you
why I have such an evil name. When I heard
the answer, I said to myself, what can the God mean?

(12:47):
And what is the interpretation of this riddle? For I
know that I have no wisdom, small or great? What
can he mean when he says that I am the
wisest of men? And yet he is a god and
cannot lie that would be against his nature. After a
long consideration, I at last thought of a method of

(13:11):
trying the question. I reflected that if I could only
find a man wiser than myself, then I might go
to the God with a refutation in my hand. I
should say to him, here is a man who is
wiser than I am, But you said that I was
the wisest. Accordingly, I went to one who had the

(13:33):
reputation of wisdom and observed to him his name. I
need not mention. He was a politician whom I selected
for examination, and the result was as follows. When I
began to talk with him, I could not help thinking
that he was not really wise, Although he was thought
wise by many, and wiser still by himself. And I

(13:56):
went and tried to explain to him that he thought
himself wise but was not really wise. And the consequence
was that he hated me, and his enmity was shared
by several who were present and heard me. So I
left him, saying to myself as I went away, well,
although I do not suppose that either of us knows

(14:19):
anything really beautiful and good, I am better off than
he is, for he knows nothing, and thinks that he knows.
I neither know nor think that I know. In this
latter particular, then I seemed to have slightly the advantage
of him. Then I went to another, who had still

(14:40):
higher philosophical pretensions, and my conclusion was exactly the same.
I made another enemy of him, and of many others
besides him. After this, I went to one man after another,
being not unconscious of the enmity which I provoked. And
I lamented and feared this, But necessity was laid upon me.

(15:04):
The word of God, I thought ought to be considered first,
and I said to myself, go, I must to all
who appear to know and find out the meaning of
the oracle. And I swear to you Athenians, by the
dog I swear, for I must tell you the truth.
The result of my mission was just this. I found

(15:28):
that the men most in repute were all but the
most foolish, and that some inferior men were really wiser
and better. I will tell you the tale of my
wanderings and of the herculean labors, as I may call them,
which I endured, only to find at last the oracle irrefutable.

(15:49):
When I left the politicians, I went to the poets, tragic,
dithyrambic and all sorts. And there I said to myself,
you will be detected. Now you will find out that
you are more ignorant than they. Accordingly, I took them
some of the most elaborate passages in their own writings

(16:10):
and asked what was the meaning of them, thinking that
they would teach me something? Will you believe me? I
am almost ashamed to speak of this, but still I
must say that there is hardly a person present who
would not have talked better about their poetry than they
did themselves. That showed me in an instant that not

(16:33):
by wisdom do poets write poetry, but by a sort
of genius and inspiration. They are like diviners or soothsayers,
who also say many fine things, but do not understand
the meaning of them. And the poets appeared to me
to be much in the same case. And I further

(16:55):
observed that upon the strength of their poetry, they believed
themselves to be the wisest of men in other things
in which they were not wise. So I departed, conceiving
myself to be superior to them, for the same reason
that I was superior to the politicians. At last, I

(17:16):
went to the artisans, for I was conscious that I
knew nothing at all, as I may say, and I
was sure that they knew many fine things. And in
this I was not mistaken, for they did know many
things of which I was ignorant, and in this they
certainly were wiser than I was. But I observed that

(17:37):
even the good artisans fell into the same error as
the poets. Because they were good workmen, they thought that
they also knew all sorts of high matters, and this
defect in them overshadowed their wisdom. Therefore, I asked myself
on behalf of the oracle, whether I would like to

(17:59):
be as I was, neither having their knowledge nor their
ignorance or like them in both, and I made answer
to myself and the oracle that I was better off
as I was. This investigation has led to my having
many enemies of the worst and most dangerous kind, and

(18:22):
has given occasion also to many columnies. And I am
called wise, for my hearers always imagine that I myself
possess the wisdom which I find wanting in others. But
the truth is O Men of Athens, that God only
is wise. And in this oracle he means to say

(18:43):
that the wisdom of men is little or nothing. He
is not speaking of Socrates. He is only using my
name as an illustration, as if he said he, O Men,
is the wisest who, like Socrates, knows that that his
wisdom is in truth worth nothing. And so I go

(19:05):
my way, obedient to the God, and make inquisition into
the wisdom of anyone, whether citizen or stranger, who appears
to be wise. And if he is not wise, then,
in vindication of the oracle, I show him that he
is not wise. And this occupation quite absorbs me, and

(19:29):
I have no time to give either to any public
matter of interest or to any concern of my own.
But am in utter poverty by reason of my devotion
to the God

Speaker 1 (19:41):
And of Part one of the Apology of Socrates by Plato,
has translated by Benjamin Jowat, recording by Father Ziley, Detroit, Michigan.