雅典人啊，你们没能赢得更多时间；相反，因为将苏格拉底置之死地，你们将恶名远扬。你们若是足够耐心等久一些，老天自会满足你们的心愿，让你们真正摆脱我；只因我年事已高，时日无多。
You think that I was convicted through deficiency of words - I mean, that if I had thought fit to leave nothing undone, nothing unsaid. I might have gained an acquittal. But I had not the boldness or impudence or inclination to address you as you would have liked me to address you, weeping and wailing and lamenting and saying and doing many things which you have been accustomed to hear from others and which, are unworthy of me.
你们无疑认为，我是因为申辩不够充分而被处以极刑，要是我按你们认为合适的方式，以行为和言辞打动陪审团以求或赦，或许我会被无罪开释。可我无法做到以取悦的方式向你们谄媚，肆意妄为、恬不知耻、卑躬屈膝、痛哭流涕、抱怨哀嚎、悔恨悲叹，这些奴颜婢膝的说辞和行径，你们道听途说早已对此习以为常，但这一切，根本配不上我的名号。
But I don't regret my defence. I would rather die having spoken after my manner than speak in your manner and live. But often in battle there is no doubt that if a man will throw away his arms, and fall on his knees before his pursuers, he may escape death; and in other dangers there are other ways of escaping death, if a man is willing to say and do anything.
我并不后悔进行申辩。我宁愿死于自己所信仰的辩护方式，也不愿按你们的方式继续苟活。法庭如同战场。战斗中常有此事发生，一个人只要扔掉武器，向追捕他的敌人乞怜求饶，便可避免一死。在危险面前，总有各种逃避死亡的办法，只要你寡廉鲜耻不惜代价，便可死里逃生。
The difficulty, my friends, is not in avoiding death, but in avoiding unrighteousness; for that runs faster than death, I am old and move slowly, and my accusers are keen and quick, and the faster runner, who is unrighteousness, has overtaken me.
朋友们，真正的困难并不是逃避死亡，而是避免做出不义之事；因为不义之事，比死亡更难逃避。我已是年老体衰、行动迟缓，而指控我的人年轻坚毅而敏捷，他们步伐迅速让我望尘莫及，可惜却行为不义。
Me, you have killed, because you wanted to escape the accuser and not to give an account of yourlives. If you think that by killing men, you can avoid the accuser censuring your lives, you are mistaken; that is not a way of escape which is either possible or honourable; the easiest and noblest way is not to be crushing others, but to be improving yourselves.
我，将被你们夺去生命，你们指望以此来逃避世人的谴责，且不用以失掉自己的性命为代价。假如你们想用置他人于死地的方式，来规避世人对自己生平过失的谴责，那实在大错特错；以此种方式来逃避谴责，既不可行又极为可耻；最易行且最高尚的方式，并非摧毁他人，而是改变自己，成为善人。
Til now, the oracle within me has constantly been in the habit of warning me. Was I going to make a slip or error? But now there has come upon me that which is generally believed to be, the last and worst evil. But the oracle made no sign of opposition. Either as I was leaving my house and going out in the morning, or when I was going up into this court, or while I was speaking.
迄今，有某种神谕伴随着我。我若是犯错，哪怕所犯之事无足挂齿，神谕便会显现 示以警醒。可现在即将降临于我身的，是世人普遍观念中最最终极的灾难——死亡。然而，神谕却未曾降下征兆阻止我，无论是当我早晨离家之时，或是在我抵达庭之时，又或是在我申辩立论之时。
What do I take to be the explanation of this? I will tell you. I regard this as a proof that what has happened to me is a good and that those of us who think that death is an evil... are in error. Either death is a state of nothingness and utter unconsciousness, or, as men say, there is a change and migration of the soul from this world to another.
这该让我作何解释？我想告诉你们，在我看来这恰恰证实了，死亡的降临于我是福气。要是我们把死亡设想为最大的不幸，才是大错特错。死亡，要么是灵魂和肉体俱灭，进入一种虚无完全无意识状态，要么如世俗所说，死亡就是灵魂从这个世界到另一个世界的变化和迁移。
Now if you suppose that there is no consciousness but a sleep, like the sleep of him who is undisturbed even by the sight of dreams, death will be an unspeakable gain. For if a person were to select the night in which his sleep was undisturbed even by dreams, and were to compare with this the other days and nights of his life, and then were to tell how many days and nights he had passed in the course of his life better and more pleasantly than this one, I think that any man, will not find many such days or nights, when compared with the others. Now if death is like this, I say that to die is gain; for eternity is then only a single night.
既然你们认为死后无意识无知觉，进入沉睡状态，进入一种甚至不会被梦境所打搅的沉睡状态，那么死亡真是一种难以言表的获益啊。要是让一个人选择某个夜晚，将这个沉睡无梦的夜晚与他一生中度过的日日夜夜进行比较，并告诉我们他这一生中有多少日日夜夜要比这个无梦的夜晚过得更快乐更美好，我相信任何人在进行对比之时都会发现，这样的日子屈指可数。如果死亡正是如此，我便将死亡当作一种收获；来世的永恒也不过是一场沉睡。
But if death is the journey to another place, and there, as men say, all the dead are, what good can be greater than this? What would not a man give if he might converse with Orpheus and Homer? Nay, if this be true, let me die, again and again. I, too, shall have a wonderful interest in a place, where I can converse with Ajax and other heroes of old, who have suffered death through an unjust judgement; and there will be no small pleasure, as I think, in comparing my own sufferings with theirs.
另一种观点，假如死亡是灵魂从此处移居至彼处，正如世人所言，所有死人都在另一个世界，还有什么事情比去那个世界更幸福呢？可以和俄耳甫斯、荷马交流思想，那还有什么不可舍弃的呢？如果死后真是这样，我愿意一次又一次死去。我当然对这样的地方饶有兴趣，在那里我会碰到大埃阿斯，还有含冤而死的古代英雄，与他们交流思想。在我看来，跟他们曾经的遭遇相比，我所承受的苦痛可以称得上快乐了。
Above all, I shall be able to continue my search into true and false knowledge; as in this world, so also in that; I shall find out who is wise, and who pretends to be wise, and is not. For in that world, they do not put a man to death for this; certainly not. For besides being happier in that world than in this, they will be immortal, if what is said is true.
更重要的是，我可以在另一个世界里继续进行真伪知识的研究，就如同在这个世界一样。我要辨别出谁拥有真智慧，谁假装自己智慧过人，以及谁毫无智慧；在那里，人们不会因为我的行为便将我置之死地，绝对不会；那个世界的人们除了比我们更幸福更快乐，他们还不死永生，如果传说属实的话。
Wherefore, judges, be of good cheer about death, and know this of a truth - that no evil can happen to a good man, either in life or after death. He and his are not neglected by the gods; nor has my own approaching end happened by mere chance.
裁决者们啊，为死亡而欢呼雀跃吧！毫无疑问，善良的人是不会遭逢恶果的，无论生前或是死后。诸神不会对他的命运充耳不闻；即将降临于我的死亡之结局，也绝非偶然。
But I see clearly that to die and be released was better for me; and therefore the oracle gave no sign. For which reason also, I am not angry with my accusers, or my condemners; they have done me no harm, although neither of them meant to do me any good; and for this, I may gently blame them.
但我看得清楚，对我来说死亡比在世为佳，最终获得解脱；因此，未有神谕显现来阻止我。出于同样的理由，对于那些指控和将我置罪的人，我并非心怀怨恨；他们对我并未造成伤害，尽管他们此举并非出于善意；于此，我要对他们进行稍稍谴责。
The hour of departure has arrived and we go our ways - I to die, and you to live. Which is better, God only knows.
离别的时刻已至，我们要各自上路：我去赴死，你们继续活着。生与死，孰优孰劣，唯有神明方才知道。
Friends, followers and students of Socrates bribe the prison guards. They urge Socrates to flee. He refuses and carries out his death-sentence by drinking hemlock.
苏格拉底的朋友、信徒和学生贿赂监狱守卫，他们恳请苏格拉底选择逃亡。苏格拉底断然拒绝，遵照死刑判决将毒鸠一饮而尽，仰面躺下静待死亡。
