Apology: The Oracle, and the Examined Life (20c–23c, 37e–38b) 申辩篇：神谕，与经过考察的生活（20c–23c，37e–38b） 原题：Ἀπολογία Σωκράτους（古希腊语） 柏拉图 Πλάτων（约前 428–前 348） 译者：Benjamin Jowett（1817–1893），1892 年 作于公元前 399 年之后；1871 年英译，1892 年修订 冷冻图书馆 · 开架书库 · S-005201 · https://coldlibrary.com/s/005201 权利：作于公元前四世纪。译者本杰明·乔伊特卒于 1893 年；这一修订译本 1892 年出版。已按澳大利亚、欧盟、英国、中国大陆和美国的规则核对（截至 2026 年 10 月 11 日）。仅供参考，不是法律意见。 来源：Project Gutenberg，https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/1656/pg1656.txt（取于 2026-10-11） 中文译文：Claude（AI），2026 · CC0 1.0 生成于 2026-10-14，来自 https://coldlibrary.com/open-stacks/plato-apology-the-oracle ---- 20c–23c I dare say, Athenians, that some one among you will reply, “Yes, Socrates, but what is the origin of these accusations which are brought against you; there must have been something strange which you have been doing? All these rumours and this talk about you would never have arisen if you had been like other men: tell us, then, what is the cause of them, for we should be sorry to judge hastily of you.” Now I regard this as a fair challenge, and I will endeavour to explain to you the reason why I am called wise and have such an evil fame. Please to attend then. And although some of you may think that I am joking, I declare that I will tell you the entire truth. Men of Athens, this reputation of mine has come of a certain sort of wisdom which I possess. If you ask me what kind of wisdom, I reply, wisdom such as may perhaps be attained by man, for to that extent I am inclined to believe that I am wise; whereas the persons of whom I was speaking have a superhuman wisdom which I may fail to describe, because I have it not myself; and he who says that I have, speaks falsely, and is taking away my character. And here, O men of Athens, I must beg you not to interrupt me, even if I seem to say something extravagant. For the word which I will speak is not mine. I will refer you to a witness who is worthy of credit; that witness shall be the God of Delphi—he will tell you about my wisdom, if I have any, and of what sort it is. You must have known Chaerephon; he was early a friend of mine, and also a friend of yours, for he shared in the recent exile of the people, and returned with you. Well, Chaerephon, as you know, was very impetuous in all his doings, and he went to Delphi and boldly asked the oracle to tell him whether—as I was saying, I must beg you not to interrupt—he asked the oracle to tell him whether anyone was wiser than I was, and the Pythian prophetess answered, that there was no man wiser. Chaerephon is dead himself; but his brother, who is in court, will confirm the truth of what I am saying. Why do I mention this? Because I am going to explain to you why I have such an evil name. When I heard the answer, I said to myself, What can the god mean? and what is the interpretation of his riddle? for I know that I have no wisdom, small or great. What then can he mean when he says that I am the wisest of men? And yet he is a god, and cannot lie; that would be against his nature. After long consideration, I thought of a method of trying the question. I reflected that if I could only find a man wiser than myself, then I might go to the god with a refutation in my hand. I should say to him, “Here is a man who is wiser than I am; but you said that I was the wisest.” Accordingly I went to one who had the reputation of wisdom, and observed him—his name I need not mention; he was a politician whom I selected for examination—and the result was as follows: When I began to talk with him, I could not help thinking that he was not really wise, although he was thought wise by many, and still wiser by himself; and thereupon I tried to explain to him that he thought himself wise, but was not really wise; and the consequence was that he hated me, and his enmity was shared by several who were present and heard me. So I left him, saying to myself, as I went away: Well, although I do not suppose that either of us knows anything really beautiful and good, I am better off than he is,—for he knows nothing, and thinks that he knows; I neither know nor think that I know. In this latter particular, then, I seem to have slightly the advantage of him. Then I went to another who had still higher pretensions to wisdom, and my conclusion was exactly the same. Whereupon I made another enemy of him, and of many others besides him. Then I went to one man after another, being not unconscious of the enmity which I provoked, and I lamented and feared this: but necessity was laid upon me,—the word of God, I thought, ought to be considered first. And I said to myself, Go I must to all who appear to know, and find out the meaning of the oracle. And I swear to you, Athenians, by the dog I swear!—for I must tell you the truth—the result of my mission was just this: I found that the men most in repute were all but the most foolish; and that others less esteemed were really wiser and better. I will tell you the tale of my wanderings and of the “Herculean” labours, as I may call them, which I endured only to find at last the oracle irrefutable. After the politicians, I went to the poets; tragic, dithyrambic, and all sorts. And there, I said to myself, you will be instantly detected; now you will find out that you are more ignorant than they are. Accordingly, I took them some of the most elaborate passages in their own writings, and asked what was the meaning of them—thinking that they would teach me something. Will you believe me? I am almost ashamed to confess the truth, but I must say that there is hardly a person present who would not have talked better about their poetry than they did themselves. Then I knew that not by wisdom do poets write poetry, but by a sort of genius and inspiration; they are like diviners or soothsayers who also say many fine things, but do not understand the meaning of them. The poets appeared to me to be much in the same case; and I further observed that upon the strength of their poetry they believed themselves to be the wisest of men in other things in which they were not wise. So I departed, conceiving myself to be superior to them for the same reason that I was superior to the politicians. At last I went to the artisans. I was conscious that I knew nothing at all, as I may say, and I was sure that they knew many fine things; and here I was not mistaken, for they did know many things of which I was ignorant, and in this they certainly were wiser than I was. But I observed that even the good artisans fell into the same error as the poets;—because they were good workmen they thought that they also knew all sorts of high matters, and this defect in them overshadowed their wisdom; and therefore I asked myself on behalf of the oracle, whether I would like to be as I was, neither having their knowledge nor their ignorance, or like them in both; and I made answer to myself and to the oracle that I was better off as I was. This inquisition has led to my having many enemies of the worst and most dangerous kind, and has given occasion also to many calumnies. And I am called wise, for my hearers always imagine that I myself possess the wisdom which I find wanting in others: but the truth is, O men of Athens, that God only is wise; and by his answer he intends to show that the wisdom of men is worth little or nothing; he is not speaking of Socrates, he is only using my name by way of illustration, as if he said, He, O men, is the wisest, who, like Socrates, knows that his wisdom is in truth worth nothing. And so I go about the world, obedient to the god, and search and make enquiry into the wisdom of any one, whether citizen or stranger, who appears to be wise; and if he is not wise, then in vindication of the oracle I show him that he is not wise; and my occupation quite absorbs me, and I have no time to give either to any public matter of interest or to any concern of my own, but I am in utter poverty by reason of my devotion to the god. 37e–38b Some one will say: Yes, Socrates, but cannot you hold your tongue, and then you may go into a foreign city, and no one will interfere with you? Now I have great difficulty in making you understand my answer to this. For if I tell you that to do as you say would be a disobedience to the God, and therefore that I cannot hold my tongue, you will not believe that I am serious; and if I say again that daily to discourse about virtue, and of those other things about which you hear me examining myself and others, is the greatest good of man, and that the unexamined life is not worth living, you are still less likely to believe me. Yet I say what is true, although a thing of which it is hard for me to persuade you. Also, I have never been accustomed to think that I deserve to suffer any harm. Had I money I might have estimated the offence at what I was able to pay, and not have been much the worse. But I have none, and therefore I must ask you to proportion the fine to my means. Well, perhaps I could afford a mina, and therefore I propose that penalty: Plato, Crito, Critobulus, and Apollodorus, my friends here, bid me say thirty minæ, and they will be the sureties. Let thirty minæ be the penalty; for which sum they will be ample security to you. ---- 中文译文 · Claude（AI）译 20c–23c 雅典人啊，我想你们中间会有人反驳说：“可是，苏格拉底，这些对你的指控究竟是怎么来的呢？你一定做过什么不寻常的事吧？要是你和别人一样，关于你的这些流言和议论就绝不会产生；那就告诉我们原因吧，因为我们不愿草率地评判你。”我认为这是一个公平的质问，我要努力向你们说明，我为什么被称为有智慧，又为什么有这样的恶名。那么请听吧。虽然你们有人会以为我在开玩笑，但我声明，我要告诉你们的全是实话。雅典人啊，我的这个名声，是由于我具有某种智慧而来的。如果你们问是哪一种智慧，我回答说，是人或许能够达到的那种智慧，就这个程度而言，我倾向于相信自己是有智慧的；而我刚才说到的那些人，他们具有一种超乎人的智慧，这种智慧我也许说不出来，因为我自己没有；谁说我有，谁就是在撒谎，在败坏我的名声。雅典人啊，我在这里必须请求你们不要打断我，即使我好像说了什么狂妄的话。因为我要说的话不是我自己的。我要请一位值得信赖的证人来作证；这位证人就是德尔斐的神——他会告诉你们，我是否有智慧，如果有，又是哪一种智慧。你们一定认识凯瑞丰；他从小就是我的朋友，也是你们的朋友，因为他和民众一起遭受了最近的那次流放，又和你们一起回来了。你们都知道，凯瑞丰做什么事都很冲动，他到德尔斐去，大胆地请求神谕告诉他——我刚才说过，请你们不要打断我——他请求神谕告诉他，有没有人比我更有智慧，皮提亚的女祭司回答说，没有人比我更有智慧。凯瑞丰本人已经去世了；可是他的兄弟就在法庭上，会证实我说的是实话。 我为什么要提这件事呢？因为我要向你们说明，我为什么有这样的恶名。我听到这个回答的时候，心里想：这位神是什么意思呢？他的谜语该怎么解释呢？因为我知道自己无论大小，都没有什么智慧。那么，他说我是最有智慧的人，究竟是什么意思呢？然而他是神，不会说谎；那不合他的本性。我思考了很久，想出了一个检验这个问题的办法。我想，只要我能找到一个比我更有智慧的人，我就可以拿着反驳去见神了。我会对他说：“这里有一个人比我更有智慧，你却说我是最有智慧的。”于是我去找一个以有智慧著称的人，观察他——他的名字我不必说，他是一个政治家，是我挑选来考察的——结果是这样的：我开始和他交谈的时候，不由得认为他其实并没有智慧，虽然许多人认为他有智慧，他自己更认为自己有智慧；于是我设法向他说明，他自以为有智慧，其实并没有；结果他恨我，在场听到的好些人也和他一样恨我。所以我离开了他，一边走一边对自己说：好吧，虽然我想我们两个人谁都不知道什么真正美好的东西，可我比他强些——因为他一无所知，却自以为知道；我既不知道，也不自以为知道。在这一点上，我似乎比他稍稍占了一点便宜。然后我又去找另一个更自命有智慧的人，结论也完全一样。于是我又和他、和他以外的许多人结了仇。 接着我一个接一个地去找人，并非不知道自己招来了怨恨，我为此忧伤，也为此害怕：可是我身负使命，——我想，神的话应该放在第一位。我对自己说，我必须去找所有看来有知识的人，弄清神谕的意思。雅典人啊，我向你们发誓——我凭狗发誓！——因为我必须对你们说实话——我这番使命的结果就是这样：我发现那些名声最大的人几乎是最愚蠢的；而那些不怎么受人尊重的人，反而更有智慧，也更好。我要把我的漫游，把我所经受的那些可以称作“赫拉克勒斯式”的苦差，讲给你们听，我经受这些，只是为了最后发现神谕是驳不倒的。离开政治家以后，我去找诗人；悲剧诗人、酒神颂诗人，各种诗人都有。我对自己说，在那里，你会立刻被识破；现在你会发现，你比他们更无知。于是我拿了他们自己作品中一些最精心的段落去问他们是什么意思——以为他们能教我一些东西。你们会相信我吗？我几乎羞于说出真相，可是我必须说，在座的人几乎没有一个不比他们自己更会谈论他们的诗。于是我知道了，诗人写诗不是凭智慧，而是凭一种天赋和灵感；他们就像占卜者和预言家，也说出许多美好的话，却不懂得它们的意思。在我看来，诗人的情形也大致如此；我还进一步看到，他们凭着自己的诗，便以为自己在别的事情上也是最有智慧的人，而在那些事情上他们并没有智慧。所以我离开了，认为自己比他们强，理由和我比政治家强一样。 最后我去找工匠。我意识到，可以说，我什么都不知道，而我确信他们知道许多好东西；在这一点上我没有错，因为他们确实知道许多我所不知道的东西，在这方面他们确实比我有智慧。可是我发现，就连好的工匠也犯了和诗人一样的错误；——因为他们是好手艺人，就以为自己也懂得各种高深的事情，这个缺点遮掩了他们的智慧；于是我代表神谕问我自己：我是愿意像现在这样，既没有他们的知识，也没有他们的无知，还是愿意像他们那样两样都有；我回答自己、也回答神谕说，我还是像现在这样好。 这番探究使我结下了许多最恶毒、最危险的仇人，也招来了许多诽谤。人们说我有智慧，因为听我说话的人总以为，我在别人身上发现缺少的那种智慧，我自己是有的；可是雅典人啊，真相是：只有神才是有智慧的；他借着他的回答，是要表明人的智慧价值很小，或者说毫无价值；他说的并不是苏格拉底，他只是借我的名字作个例子，好像是说：人们啊，像苏格拉底那样知道自己的智慧实际上毫无价值的人，才是最有智慧的。所以我遵从神意，到处走，寻访、探究任何一个看来有智慧的人，不论他是本城公民还是外邦人；如果他没有智慧，我就为了证明神谕而向他指出他没有智慧；我的这项工作占去了我全部的时间，使我没有工夫去管任何公众的事情或者我自己的事情，而由于我对神的虔诚，我一贫如洗。 37e–38b 有人会说：好吧，苏格拉底，难道你就不能闭上嘴，到外邦的城邦去吗？那样就不会有人干涉你了。现在，我很难让你们明白我对此的回答。因为，如果我告诉你们，照你们说的去做就是违背神，所以我不能闭嘴，你们不会相信我是认真的；如果我再说，每天谈论德性，谈论你们听我用来考察自己和别人的其他种种事情，这是人最大的善，而未经考察的生活是不值得过的，你们就更不会相信我了。然而我说的是真话，虽然这是一件我很难说服你们的事情。还有，我从来不习惯于认为自己该受什么惩罚。要是我有钱，我就会按照我付得起的数目来估定罚金，那样我也不会受多大损失。可是我没有钱，所以我必须请你们按照我的财力来定罚金。好吧，我也许付得起一个米那，所以我提议这样的罚金：柏拉图、克里同、克里托布卢斯和阿波罗多洛斯，我的这几位朋友在这里，叫我提三十个米那，他们愿意作保。就定三十个米那的罚金吧；这笔钱他们足以为你们作担保。