The Apology E-Book

Xenophon

• Herausgeber: libreka classics
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019

Seitenzahl: 24

Beschreibung

libreka classics – These are classics of literary history, reissued and made available to a wide audience. Immerse yourself in well-known and popular titles!

Leseprobe

Titel: The Apology

von William Shakespeare, H. G. Wells, Henry Van Dyke, Thomas Carlyle, Oscar Wilde, Joseph Conrad, Henry James, Anthony Hope, Henry Fielding, Giraldus Cambrensis, Daniel Defoe, Grammaticus Saxo, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Hugh Lofting, Agatha Christie, Sinclair Lewis, Eugène Brieux, Upton Sinclair, Booth Tarkington, Sax Rohmer, Jack London, Anna Katharine Green, Sara Jeannette Duncan, Xenophon

ISBN 978-3-7429-1116-2

Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

THE APOLOGY

By Xenophon

Translation by H. G. Dakyns

PREPARER'S NOTE

This was typed from Dakyns' series, "The Works of Xenophon," a four-volume set. The complete list of Xenophon's works (though there is doubt about some of these) is:

Text in brackets "{}" is my transliteration of Greek text into English using an Oxford English Dictionary alphabet table. The diacritical marks have been lost.

Footnotes

THE APOLOGY OF SOCRATES 1

Among the reminiscences of Socrates, none, as it seems to me, is more deserving of record than the counsel he took with himself 2 (after being cited to appear before the court), not only with regard to his defence, but also as to the ending of his life. Others have written on this theme, and all without exception have touched upon 3 the lofty style of the philosopher, 4 which may be taken as a proof that the language used by Socrates was really of that type. But none of these writers has brought out clearly the fact that Socrates had come to regard death as for himself preferable to life; and consequently there is just a suspicion of foolhardiness in the arrogancy of his address. 5 We have, however, from the lips of one of his intimate acquaintances, Hermogenes, 6 the son of Hipponicus, an account of him which shows the high demeanour in question to have been altogether in keeping with the master's rational purpose. 7 Hermogenes says that, seeing Socrates discoursing on every topic rather than that of his impending trial, he roundly put it to him whether he ought not to be debating the line of his defence, to which Socrates in the first instance answered: "What! do I not seem to you to have spent my whole life in meditating my defence?" And when Hermogenes asked him, "How?" he added: "By a lifelong persistence in doing nothing wrong, and that I take to be the finest practice for his defence which a man could devise." Presently reverting to the topic, Hermogenes demanded: "Do you not see, Socrates, how often Athenian juries 8 are constrained by arguments to put quite innocent people to death, and not less often to acquit the guilty, either through some touch of pity excited by the pleadings, or that the defendant had skill to turn some charming phrase?" Thus appealed to, Socrates replied: "Nay, solemnly I tell you, twice already I have essayed to consider my defence, and twice the divinity 9