Please hear this apology in the ancient sense
Albeit inflected by the modern sense
I do not contest that I have committed a wrongful act
Indeed I proclaim the commission of such an act
And I further confess that I am an irrational animal
Raging within a soft membrane of rationality

Perhaps there are those here among us
Who are rational through and through
If so they merit unconstrained admiration
And merit the authority to bind or loose
I however willingly assert
That I am worthy of no such regard

On the contrary I reprehend most forcefully
Not merely the act itself
But the person who committed it
And against no person other than myself
Would I levy such a condemnation
I know as I could know of no other
That I might have known before I committed it
That such an act was wrong
And I would have vigorously denied
That I was even capable of such a thing

And yet I now deny that I deliberately
That is with full knowledge and control
Committed that act
Whose execution I have already admitted

For I can indeed describe to you the horror
I felt at the moment when I became the first witness
The perplexity that it was I of all people
Who had done this thing
But in the event
I could not perform the moral calculus
My moral reasoning overtaken by the animal
Nor can I guarantee the permanent suppression
Of the enemy
Nor was its advent some casual eruption
But rather a response to provocation
Nevertheless I will not claim any extenuation

A saint a holy man once declared all persons to be good
For though a rational being might mistake the good
Nobody can with reason want the bad

And so this assembly must decide
An easy decision no doubt for those
Who are rational through and through
For it is as clear as the cleansing waters
That a vicious animal cannot be allowed
To subsist among us
And exile or death are in order
But those who live within the rational veneer
Will recognize among their kindred
One who failed
And the only question will be
Is one who failed irretrievably lost