Plato "The Apology" excerpt 36a-38b

This excerpt is from Plato's Apology. The jury has just voted to condemn Socrates to death for "refusing to recognize the gods recognized by the state" and of "corrupting the youth." Here Socrates is asked to propose an alternative punishment; he will reason that he should get free food. This is a very famous passage - recorded by Socrates' student Plato. 

One hint for reading these kinds of passages - read them aloud -I do still do it!

Many things contribute to my not being indignant, men of Athens,
at what has happened —that you voted to convict me and 
one of them is that what has happened was not unexpected by me.
But I wonder much more at the number of the votes on each side.
For I at least did not suppose it would be by so little, but by much.

...

At any rate, the man proposes death as my desert. Well, then. 
What counterproposal shall I make to you, men of Athens? Or is it
not clear that it should be whatever I am worthy of? What then?
What am I worthy to suffer or to pay because I did not keep quiet
during my life and did not care for the things that the many do—
moneymaking and household management, and generalships,
and popular oratory, and the other offices, and conspiracies and
factions that come to be in the city—since I held that I myself was
really too decent to survive if I went into these things? I did not go 
into matters where, if I did go, I was going to be of no benefit either
to you or to myself; instead, I went to each of you privately to
perform the greatest benefaction, as I affirm, and I attempted to
persuade each of you not to care for any of his own things until he
cares for himself, how he will be the best and most prudent possible,
nor to care for the things of the city until he cares for the city
itself, and so to care for the other things in the same way. What,
then, am I worthy to suffer, being such as this? Something good, 
men of Athens, at least if you give me what I deserve according to
my worth in truth—and besides, a good of a sort that would be
fitting for me. What, then, is fitting for a poor man, a benefactor,
who needs to have leisure to exhort you? There is nothing more
fitting, men of Athens, than for such a man to be given his meals in
the Prytaneum, much more so than if any of you has won a victory
...
Well, should I propose exile, then? For perhaps you would grant
me this as my desert. I would certainly be possessed by much love
of soul, men of Athens, if I were so unreasonable that I were not
able to reason that you who are my fellow citizens were not able to
bear my ways of spending time and my speeches, but that instead d
they have become quite grave and hateful to you, so that you are
now seeking to be released from them: will others, then, bear them
easily? Far from it, men of Athens. Noble indeed would life be for
me, a human being of my age, to go into exile and to live exchanging
one city for another, always being driven out! For I know well
that wherever I go, the young will listen to me when I speak, just
as they do here. And if I drive them away, they themselves will
drive me out by persuading their elders. But if I do not drive them 
away, their fathers and families will drive me out because of these 
same ones.

Perhaps, then, someone might say, “By being silent and keeping
quiet, Socrates, won’t you be able to live in exile for us?” It is
hardest of all to persuade some of you about this. For if I say that
this is to disobey the god and that because of this it is impossible to
keep quiet, you will not be persuaded by me, on the ground that I 
am being ironic.  And on the other hand, if I say that this even
happens to be a very great good for a human being—to make
speeches every day about virtue and the other things about which
you hear me conversing and examining both myself and others—
and that the unexamined life is not worth living for a human being,
you will be persuaded by me still less when I say these things. This
is the way it is, as I affirm, men; but to persuade you is not easy.

Selection from: https://www.sjsu.edu/people/james.lindahl/courses/Phil70A/s3/apology.pdf Links to an external site. Reprinted from Thomas G. West, Plato’s Apology of Socrates: An Interpretation with a New Translation. Copyright by Cornell University, published by Cornell University Press.