Page:The works of Plato, A new and literal version, (vol 1) (Cary, 1854).djvu/30

18 not injure me more than yourselves. For neither will Melitus nor Anytus harm me; nor have they the power: for I do not think that it is possible for a better man to be injured by a worse. He may perhaps have me condemned to death, or banished or deprived of civil rights; and he or others may perhaps consider these as mighty evils: I however do not consider them so, but that it is much more so to do what he is now doing, to endeavour to put a man to death unjustly. Now, therefore, O Athenians, I am far from making a defence on my own behalf, as any one might think, but I do so on your behalf, lest by condemning me you should offend at all with respect to the gift of the deity to you. For, if you should put me to death, you will not easily find such another, though it may be ridiculous to say so, altogether attached by the deity to this city as to a powerful and generous horse, somewhat sluggish from his size, and requiring to be roused by a gad-fly; so the deity appears to have united me, being such a person as I am, to the city, that I may rouse you. and persuade and reprove every one of you, nor ever cease besetting you throughout the whole day. Such another man, O Athenians, will not easily be found, therefore, if you will take my advice, you will spare me. But you, perhaps, being irritated, like drowsy persons who are roused from sleep, will strike me, and, yielding to Anytus, will unthinkingly condemn me to death; and then you will pass the rest of your life in sleep, unless the deity, caring for you, should send some one else to you. But that I am a person who has been given by the deity to this city, you may discern from hence; for it is not like the ordinary conduct of men, that I should have neglected all my own affairs and suffered my private interest to be neglected for so many years, and that I should constantly attend to your concerns, addressing myself to each of you separately, like a father, or elder brother, persuading you to the pursuit of virtue. And if I had derived any profit from this course, and had received pay for my exhortations, there would have been some reason for my conduct; but now you see yourselves, that my accusers, who have so shamelessly calumniated me in every thing else, have not had the impudence to charge me with this, and to bring witnesses to prove that I ever either exacted or demanded any reward. And I think I produce a sufficient proof that I speak the truth, namely, my poverty.

19. Perhaps, however, it may appear absurd, that I, going