Written by Socrates' disciple Plato sometime in the decade after his mentor's death, The Apology is one of two surviving accounts of the trial of Socrates on charges of corrupting the youth of Athens. Delving into questions of morality, death and virtue, the speech is notable for Socrates' uncompromising insistence on taking the moral highroad even at risk of condemnation and a capital sentence.

Learning Chinese? This selection is intended for advanced learners and is unlike our other short stories in being a Chinese translation of a famous Greek work rather than an indigenous Chinese text. It is like our other stories in presenting the fulltext of a noteworthy text annotated with word-by-word popups that show the english and pinyin pronunciation of each word in context when you hover your mouse over them. Our goal is removing the distraction of looking words up so that you can read more Chinese and focus on the story rather than the meaning of individual words.

On a final note, while it takes a great of time to produce these annotated works, we are always looking for ways to improve our annotations to make them clearer. If you have any suggestions on passages you find could use more explanation, please let us know in the comments section below, or by sending us an email at service@popupchinese.com. Likewise, we welcome suggestions on stories and other reading materials to add to our archives.