The time has come for us to part, I to die, you to live. Which of us goes to the better fate, only the god can know.

As for me, dear judges who have condemned me, I would still say this: it is not long before my accusers will face you, and soon the great evil that awaited you at my death will vanish. If you kill me believing you will be freed from the burden of accounting for your lives, you are greatly mistaken. You will have, in truth, many more examiners, whom until now I held back without your knowing it; and they will be younger and harsher, and you will understand them no better. Leaving these behind as if asleep, you will wake their still colder successors. What does that matter to me? Above all, killing me is not what they accused me of, but rather wronging the god's gift and offending me, his envoy. If you hold your peace, reproaches will still come; it is only by reforming yourselves and caring for virtue, trusting all things to the god, that you will make the best choice, I on my side, you on yours.

And to you who voted for acquittal, since we shall meet again, know that your intention toward me was the best possible, the same I would have had for you. Say to yourselves, men and judges, that the affairs of men deserve little attention, and that nothing great is achieved without them.

For I feel I have said nothing in my defense that would shame me, nor anything to cling to life. I had to stand firm, not yielding my place, and to say and do nothing ugly. I am conscious of having done everything, and well, so as not to fall short of what is just.

Moreover, what has befallen me is not a human thing; it is that the divine sign, which usually opposes me, has not opposed me now. But I feel no resistance. I take my leave of this life with good hope, for there is much to hope for in death. Death is one of two things: either the dead are nothing and feel nothing, a sleep from which one does not wake, or else it is a migration of the soul to another place. If it is dreamless sleep, death is a gain; if it is a journey to a place where all who died dwell, what greater good could there be than to examine and question those there, as I did here, to find out who among them is wise?

Nothing evil can happen to a good man, in life or in death, and the gods are not indifferent to his affairs. So I am not angry with my condemners, nor with my accusers, though they did not intend this. Only I ask one thing of them: when my sons grow up, punish them, judges, as I have pained you, if you see them caring for riches or anything else more than for virtue, or thinking themselves something when they are nothing. Rebuke them, as I rebuked you, for not caring for what they should and thinking themselves something when they are nothing.

The hour of departure has arrived, and we go our ways, I to die, you to live. Which is better, only the god knows.