[14]
But as for myself, if I do not speak in a manner worthy of my subject and of my reputation and of the time which I have spent1—not merely the hours which have been devoted to my speech but also all the years which I have lived—I bid you show me no indulgence but hold me up to ridicule and scorn; for there is nothing of the sort which I do not deserve to suffer, if indeed, being no better than the others, I make promises so great.2So much, by way of introduction, as to my personal claims.
1 See General Introd. p. 30.
2 This self-confidence is something more than Isocratean vanity. It is a conscious device to enhance the greatness of this theme. At the beginning he is exalted by its magnitude; at the end, 187, he is cast down by his failure to measure up to it. See Havet's interesting remarks in Cartelier's Antidosis, p. lxv.
Isocrates. Isocrates with an English Translation in three volumes, by George Norlin, Ph.D., LL.D. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1980.
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