if it be a transmigration
from one place to another, that it is a bettering of one's condition to
go and live with so many great persons deceased, and to be exempt from
having any more to do with unjust and corrupt judges; if it be an
annihilation of our being, 'tis yet a bettering of one's condition to
enter into a long and peaceable night; we find nothing more sweet in life
than quiet repose and a profound sleep without dreams. The things that
I know to be evil, as to injure one's neighbour and to disobey one's
superior, whether it be God or man, I carefully avoid; such as I do not
know whether they be good or evil, I cannot fear them. If I am to die
and leave you alive, the gods alone only know whether it will go better
with you or with me. Wherefore, as to what concerns me, you may do as
you shall think fit. But according to my method of advising just and
profitable things, I say that you will do your consciences more right to
set me at liberty, unless you see further into my cause than I do; and,
judging according to my past actions, both public and private, according
to my intentions, and according to the profit that so many of our
citizens, both young and old, daily extract from my conversation, and the
fruit that you all reap from me, you cannot more duly acquit yourselves
towards my merit than in ordering that, my poverty considered, I should
be maintained at the Prytanaeum, at the public expense, a thing that I
have often known you, with less reason, grant to others. Do not impute
it to obstinacy or disdain that I do not, according to the custom,
supplicate and go about to move you to commiseration. I have both
friends and kindred, not being, as Homer says, begotten of wood or of
stone, no more than others, who might well present themselves before you
with tears and mourning, and I have three desolate children with whom to
move you to compassion; but I should do a shame to our city at the age I
am, and in the reputation of wisdom which is now charged against me, to
appear in such an abject form. What would men say of the other
Athenians? I have always admonished those who have frequented my
lectures, not to redeem their lives by an unbecoming action; and in the
wars of my country, at Amphipolis, Potidea, Delia, and other expeditions
where I have been, I have effectually manifested how far I was from
securing my safety by my shame. I should, moreover, compromise your
duty, and should invite you to unbec