It is not difficult, men of Athens, to defend myself; I know it well. All that I have to say to you is not a studied speech, adorned with carefully chosen words; it is a plain discourse, full of naturalness, such as I use in the public square, at the counters of the merchants, where many of you have heard me. Indeed, I believe it would not befit me to use before you speech that is varnished and contrived; and I can do no better than to repeat what I said just now: listen to me only without regard to the manner, and attend only to the justice of what I shall say.

Let each of you, men of Athens, consider within himself: when he has taken his place in battle, whether he and his commanders have done well to stand firm, he must not, imagining that death is at hand, resort to every sort of expedient to escape it. It is far better, in any case, that a thousand dreadful things should appear before him than that he should blush for his cowardice. That is what I should do today, men of Athens, were I willing to yield to my judges, or to abandon my post, and to avoid death; but to avoid evil, shame, and disgrace — that is not in my power, any more than it was in my power to avoid death in battle. And had I employed such expedients to save myself, as I might have done in pleading my cause, I might equally have saved myself by flight, or by some other means; but to avoid shame and disgrace was beyond my reach. It is death that I might have overcome today, had I been willing to take the means, but not disgrace; and today I fall, not for want of words, but for want of boldness and through cowardice, for not having dared to say to you what you needed to hear, and what I myself find most profitable for you.

Be assured, men of Athens, that if you had put me to death, because Meletus proposed it and I had not consented, you would have sinned against yourselves, and not against me. It is not in the nature of things for a wrong to pass from the stronger to the weaker; that a man may kill, overreach, or slander another, that can happen; but it is not I who flee and shun myself, men of Athens; I might perhaps have escaped in that other way. But he who has to do with the substance of my cause is Meletus; and my cause is that I am accused of not honoring the gods the city honors, and of introducing new divinities; that I corrupt the young. Allow me to say only this: if I corrupt the young, it is involuntarily; and if you will let me instruct you on this, you must prosecute me for my ignorance, not for my wickedness. Did I fall into error willingly? No, men of Athens. What then? You have offered me two courses: either to correct myself, or to cease acting thus; and the second is impossible, say so plainly: to correct myself, on condition that I continue to act as I have acted until now, and that I abstain from it — there is no way, even if I were obliged to die a hundred times over.

I shall never cease to philosophize, nor to exhort you, nor to instruct any one of you whom I may meet, after my accustomed manner: "Friend, greatest, noblest, mightiest of citizens, you are an Athenian of a city more renowned than all others for its wisdom and its power; have you then no shame to care for your riches, to increase them at the expense of your reason, and to devote all your care and all your study to acquiring renown and honors, without troubling to make yourself wiser, nor to seek instruction in order to gain more truth, and to perfect your soul?" And if any of you protests and says to me: "Yes, Socrates, I do concern myself with these things," I shall not leave him at once, nor go my way; I shall first question him, examine him, test him; and if I think he does not possess virtue, though he claims as much as I do, I shall blame him, I shall treat him with less consideration, because he is but mediocre, and neglects what is most precious, while giving his care to what is least. This I shall do to all whom I meet, old men and young alike, strangers and citizens; but more to the citizens, because you are nearer to me. Know well that this is what the god commands me; and I believe that nothing has ever been more advantageous to you in this city than this zeal with which I have obeyed the god. As for me, if I were to abandon my calling for a single moment, to go one way or the other, I know well that I should soon commit an injustice; therefore it is a thing impossible for me to do. But far from it, understand well that you will accomplish nothing against me, not even if Meletus makes use of what I have said; for what I say is true: if you put me to death, you will not easily find another man such as I, however difficult it may be for the city to bear me, like a gadfly that the god has set upon its horse, great and sluggish, to wake it and sting it. I do not doubt that I am a man whom the god has given you, like that gadfly.