I know not, O Athenians! how far you have been influenced by my accusers
for my part, in listening to them I almost forgot myself, so plausible
were their arguments however, so to speak, they have said nothing true.
But of the many falsehoods which they uttered I wondered at one of them
especially, that in which they said that you ought to be on your guard
lest you should be deceived by me, as being eloquent in speech. For that
they are not ashamed of being forthwith convicted by me in fact, when I
shall show that I am not by any means eloquent, this seemed to me the
most shameless thing in them, unless indeed they call him eloquent who
speaks the truth. For, if they mean this, then I would allow that I am
an orator, but not after their fashion for they, as I affirm, have said
nothing true, but from me you shall hear the whole truth. Not indeed,
Athenians, arguments highly wrought, as theirs were, with choice phrases
and expressions, nor adorned, but you shall hear a speech uttered
without premeditation in such words as first present themselves. For I
am confident that what I say will be just, and let none of you expect
otherwise, for surely it would not become my time of life to come before
you like a youth with a got up speech. Above all things, therefore, I
beg and implore this of you, O Athenians! if you hear me defending
myself in the same language as that in which I am accustomed to speak
both in the forum at the counters, where many of you have heard me, and
elsewhere, not to be surprised or disturbed on this account. For the
case is this: I now for the first time come before a court of justice,
though more than seventy years old; I am therefore utterly a stranger to
the language here. As, then, if I were really a stranger, you would have
pardoned me if I spoke in the language and the manner in which I had
been educated, so now I ask this of you as an act of justice, as it
appears to me, to disregard the manner of my speech, for perhaps it may
be somewhat worse, and perhaps better, and to consider this only, and to