17d
The Apology of Socrates 17d · Seventy years old, and never in court17dSeventy years old, and never in court
He explains the request. He has never stood in a law court before.
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ἔχει1
échei
it isit holds
γὰρ2
gàr
For
οὑτωσί3
houtōsí
like thisthus
. νῦν4
nŷn
now
ἐγὼ5
egṑ
I
πρῶτον7
prôton
for the first time
ἐπὶ8
epì
before
δικαστήριον9
dikastḗrion
a law courta place of judging
ἀναβέβηκα6
anabébēka
have come uphave gone up
, ἔτη10
étē
years
γεγονὼς11
gegonṑs
beinghaving been born
ἑβδομήκοντα12
hebdomḗkonta
seventy
·; ἀτεχνῶς13
atechnôs
simplywithout art
οὖν14
oûn
so
ξένως15
xénōs
a strangerin a foreign way
ἔχω16
échō
I amI hold
τῆς17
tês
to the
ἐνθάδε18
entháde
here
λέξεως19
léxeōs
way of speakingspeech
. For it is like this. Now I have come up for the first time before a law court, being seventy years old. So I am simply a stranger to the way of speaking here.
For it is like this. Now I have come up for the first time before a law court, being seventy years old. So I am simply a stranger to the way of speaking here.
Interpretation
This is how it is. Now, for the first time, I have come up before a law court, at seventy years old. So I am simply a stranger to the way people speak here.
Athens was a city of lawsuits, and most men of seventy would have been in court many times. Socrates never had. The verb anabebēka, "I have gone up," is literal: a speaker climbed onto a raised platform, the bēma.
Atechnōs, "simply," means literally "without art," from technē, "skill, craft," the root of "technique." The orators had a technē of speaking. Socrates says he has none.
17d2
The Apology of Socrates 17d2 · Like a foreigner17d2Like a foreigner
He asks the jury to treat him as they would a foreigner who spoke in his own accent and dialect.
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Just as, then, if I really happened to be a foreigner, you would surely forgive me if I spoke in that dialect and manner in which I had been brought up,