17c
The Apology of Socrates 17c · Not at my age17cNot at my age
It would not suit a man of seventy, he says, to come before them like a boy reciting a speech he has made up.
· · ·
οὐδὲ1
oudè
Nor
γὰρ2
gàr
for
ἂν6
àn
would
δήπου3
dḗpou
surelyI suppose
πρέποι7
prépoi
it be fittingbe seemly
, ὦ4
ô
O
ἄνδρες5
ándres
gentlemenmen
, τῇδε8
têide
at this
τῇ9
têi
the
ἡλικίᾳ10
hēlikíai
agetime of life
ὥσπερ14
hṓsper
like
μειρακίῳ15
meirakíōi
a boya lad
πλάττοντι16
pláttonti
making upmoulding
λόγους17
lógous
speecheswords
εἰς11
eis
beforeinto
ὑμᾶς12
hymâs
you
εἰσιέναι13
eisiénai
to cometo go in
. Nor, surely, gentlemen, would it be fitting at this age to come before you like a boy making up speeches.
Nor, surely, gentlemen, would it be fitting at this age to come before you like a boy making up speeches.
Interpretation
For surely it would not be fitting, gentlemen, at my age, to come before you like a boy making up speeches.
Plattonti, "moulding," is the verb for shaping clay or wax; it gives us "plastic." A meirakion was a teenager, the age of the young men who paid sophists to teach them how to build a speech. The picture is of a schoolboy shaping words like a modeller shapes a figure. Socrates will not perform that kind of speech.
17c2
The Apology of Socrates 17c2 · Don't shout me down17c2Don't shout me down
He makes one request: if he talks the way he always talks in the market, the jury should not be surprised or start to heckle.
· · ·
And indeed, very much also, men of Athens, I ask and beg this of you: if you hear me making my defence in the same words I usually speak in both in the marketplace at the bankers' tables, where many of you have heard me, and elsewhere, neither to be surprised nor to make an uproar because of this.