[10]
Relying on your integrity and wisdom, I have undertaken a greater
burden than, I am well aware, I am able to bear. If you, in some degree, lighten this
burden, O judges, I will bear it as well as I can with zeal and industry. But if, as I
do not expect, I am abandoned by you, still I will not fail in courage, and I will bear
what I have undertaken as well as I can. But if I cannot support it, I had rather be
overwhelmed by the weight of my duty, than either through treachery betray, or through
weakness of mind desert, that which has been once honestly entrusted to me.
This text is part of:
Search the Perseus Catalog for:
M. Tullius Cicero. The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, literally translated by C. D. Yonge. London. George Bell & Sons. 1903.
The National Endowment for the Humanities provided support for entering this text.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.