On His Return (5-9)

The entire strength of their case against me, one finds, lies in their taunting me at every turn with my misfortunes; and that too when their listeners know better than they, so that not a word which they have uttered can bring them any true credit.

To my mind, gentlemen, he was a wise man who first said that every human being is born to meet with good fortune and with bad; that to make a mistake is to meet with great ill fortune:

and that while those who make the fewest mistakes are the luckiest, those who repent of them soonest show most good sense. Nor is this the peculiar lot of some men only; it is the common fate of humanity to make mistakes and suffer misfortune. So do but remember the frailty of man in passing judgement upon me, gentlemen, and your feelings for me will be more kindly. Indeed I do not deserve ill-will so much as sympathy for the past.

Owing to—shall I say my own youthful folly, or the influence of others who persuaded me into such a piece of madness?[*]—I was luckless enough to be forced to choose between two of the most painful alternatives imaginable. On the one hand, I could refuse to disclose the authors of the outrage. In that case I not only trembled for my own fate, but caused the death of my father, who was entirely innocent, as well as my own—he was inevitably doomed, if I refused to speak. On the other hand, I could purchase my own life and liberty and avoid becoming my father’s murderer—and what would a man not bring himself to do to escape that?—but only by turning informer.

Of the alternatives before me, then, I chose that which meant years of sorrow for myself, but immediate release for you from the distress of the moment. Remember your peril: remember your helplessness: remember how you stood in such fear of one another that you ceased going abroad even into the Agora, because you each expected arrest.[*] That such a state of things should have occurred at all proved to be due only in small part to me; that it ended, on the other hand, proved to be due to me alone.

Notwithstanding, I have never succeeded in being anything save the unluckiest man alive; for when Athens was heading for this disaster, no one came near suffering the sorrows which I suffered: and when she was once more regaining her security, I was of all men the most to be pitied. The desperate distress of Athens could be remedied only at the cost of my good name: so that your deliverance meant my own ruin. It is your gratitude, therefore, not your scorn that I deserve for my sufferings.