I breathe again, for you will not put me to death
if you understand how I have acted as regards you.
So throw away your stones; or better, keep them.
You will make use of them against those who
deserve them.
It is curious that this suggestion, though emphasized by being repeated (§ 11), is not worked out.
Nonsense: you must die to-day. Yes, forthwith
Don your tunic of stone on account of the wrongs
you have done us!Iliad3, 57.
Truly, gentlemen, you will put to death, you may
depend upon it, the one man in the world whom you
ought to commend as your friend, well-wisher, comrade in thought, and, if it be not in bad taste to say
so, the defender of your teachings, if you put me to
death after I have laboured so earnestly in your
behalf. Take care, then, that you yourselves are not
acting like most of our present-day philosophers by
showing yourselves ungrateful and hasty and inconsiderate toward a benefactor.
O what impudence! So we really owe you gratitude
for your abuse, into the bargain? Are you so convinced that you are truly talking to slaves? Will you
actually set yourself down as our benefactor, on top
of all your insolent and intemperate language ?
Where, pray, and when have I insulted you? I have
always consistently admired philosophy and extolled
you and lived on intimate terms with the writings
that you have left behind. These very phrases that
I utter—where else but from you did I get them?
Culling them like a bee, I make my show with them
before men, who applaud and recognize where and
from whom and how I gathered each flower; and
although ostensibly it is I whom they admire for the
bouquet, as a matter of fact it is you and your garden,
because you have put forth such blossoms, so gay and
varied in their hues—if one but knows how to select
and interweave and combine them so that they will
not be out of harmony with one another. Would any
man, after receiving this kindly treatment at your
hands,-attempt to speak ill of benefactors to whom
he owes his reputation? Not unless he be like Thamyris or Eurytus in his nature, so as to raise his voice
against the Muses from whom he had the gift of song,
or to match himself against Apollo in archery—and
he the giver of the bow !
That speech of yours is good rhetoric, my fine
fellow ; but it is directly against your case and only
makes your presumptuousness appear more staggering,
since ingratitude is now added to injustice. For you
got your shafts from us, as you admit, and then turned
them against us, making it your only aim to speak
ill of us all. That is the way you have paid us for
opening that garden to you and not forbidding you
to pick flowers and go away with your arms full.
For that reason, then, above all else, you deserve
to die.
See! You give me an angry-hearing, and you
reject every just plea! Yet I should never have
supposed that anger could affect. Plato or Chrysippus
or Aristotle or the rest of you; it seemed to me that
you, and you alone, were surely far away from anything of that kind. But, however that may be, my
masters, do not put me to death unsentenced and
unheard. This too was once a trait of yours, not to
deal with fellow-citizens on a basis of force and
superior strength, but to settle your differences by
course of law, according, a hearing and in your
turn receiving one. So let us choose a judge, and
then you may bring your complaint either jointly
or through anyone whom you may elect to represent you all; and I will defend.myself against
your charges. Then, if I am proven guilty, and the
court passes that verdict upon me, I will submit, of
course, to the punishment that I deserve, and you
will not have taken it upon yourselves to do anything
high-handed. But if after I have undergone my
investigation I am found innocent and irreproachable,
the jury will discharge me, and you will turn your
anger against those who nave misled you and set
you against me.