Phaedrus — Plato

l6 PLATO THE TEACHER let me go now, and reject the counsels of AnytuSi who said that if I were not put to death I ought not to have been prosecuted, and that if I escape now, your sons will all be utterly ruined by listening to my words,— if you say to me, Socrates, this time we will not mind Anytus, and will let you off, but upon one condition, that you are not to inquire and speculate in this way any more, and that if you are caught doing this again you shall die, — if this was the condition on which you let me go, I should reply : Men of Athens, I honor and love you ; but I shall obey God rather than you,^ and while I have I life and strength I shall never cease from the practice and / teaching of philosophy, exhorting any one whom I meet after / my manner, and convincing him, saying : O my friend, why do you, who are a citizen of the great and mighty and wise city of Athens, care so much about laying up the greatest amount of money and honor and reputation, and so little about wisdom and truth and the greatest improvement of the soul,*^ which you never regard or heed at all ?

Are you not ashamed of this ? And if the person with whom I am arguing, says. Yes, but I do care : I do not depart or let him go at once ; I interrogate and examine and cross-examine him, and if I think that he has no virtue, but only says that he has, I reproach him with undervaluing the greater, and overvaluing the less.

And this I should say to every one whom I meet, young and old, citizen and alien, but especially to the citizens, inasmuch as they are my brethren. For this is the command to God, as I would have you know ; and I believe that to this day no greater good has ever happened in the State than my service to the God.

For I do nothing but -. go about persuading you all, old and young alike, not to take thought for your persons or your properties, but first and chiefly to care about the greatest improvement of the soul. I tell you that virtue is not given by money, but that from virtue come money and every other good of man, public as well as private.* This is my teaching, and if this is the doctrine which corrupts the youth, ray influence is ruinous indeed.

But if any one says that this is not my teaching, he is speak- «* " We ought to obey God rather than men.*' — ^Acts v. 29. M " For a man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth/'-^Luke xil 15. ^ " But rather seek ye the kingdom of God ; and all these things shall be added unto you." — Luke xii. 31.

p. 17ing an untruth. Wherefore, O men of Athens, I say to you, do as Anytus bids or not as Anytus bids, and either acquit me or not ; but whatever you do, know that I shall never alter my ways, not even if I have to die many times, y Men of Athens, do not interrupt, but hear me ; there was an agreement between us that you should hear me out.

And I think that what I am going to say will do you good : for I have something more to say, at which you may be inclined to cry out ; but I beg that you will not do this. I would have you know, that if you kill such a one as I am, you will i injure yourselves more than you will injure me. Meletus and ^ Anytus will not injure me : they cannot ; for it is not in the nature of things that a bad man should injure a better than himself.

I do not deny that he may, perhaps, kill him, or drive him into exile, or deprive him of civil rights ; and he may imagine, and others may imagine, that he is doing him a great injury : but in that I do not agree with him ; for the evil of doing as Anytus is doing— of unjustly taking away another v-^'^ man's Ufe — ^is greater far.

And now, Athenians, I am not going to argue for my own sake, as you may think, but for yours, that you may not sin against the God, or lightly reject his boon by condemning me.

For if you kill me you will not easily find another like me, who, if I may use such a ludicrous figure of speech, am a sort of gadfly, given to the State by the God ; and the State is like a great and noble steed who is tardy in his motions owing to his very size, and requires to be stirred into life.

I am that gadfly which God has given the State, and all day long and in all places am always fastening upon you, arousing and persuading and reproaching you. And ^' as you will not easily find another like me, I would advise you to spare me.

I dare say that you may feel irritated at being suddenly awakened when you are caught napping ; and you may think that if you were to strike me dead as Anytus advises, which you easily might, then you would sleep on for the remainder of your lives, unless God in his care of you gives you another gadfly.

And that I am given to you by God is proved by this : that if I had been like other men, I should not have ^ neglected all my own concerns, or patiently seen the neglect of them during all these years, and have been doing yours, coming to you individually, like a father or elder brother, exhorting you to r^;ard virtue ; this, I say, would not be like human

I 8 PLATO THE TEACHER nature. And had I gained anything, or if my exhortations had been paid, there would have been some sense in that : but now, as you will perceive, not even the impudence of my accusers dares to say that I have ever exacted or sought pay of any V one ; they have no witness of that. And I have a witness of the truth of what I say ; my poverty is a sufficient witness.

N Some one may wonder why I go about in private, giving V advice and busying myself with the concerns of others, but do not venture to come forward in public and advise the State. I will tell you the reason of this. You have often heard me speak of an oracle or sign ^ which comfes to me, and is the diviny^ ^ ' ity which Meletus ridicules in the indictment. This sign I have had ever since I was 91 child.

The sign is a voice which comes to me and always forbids me to do something which I am going to do, but neyer_ commands me to do anything, and this is what stands in the way of my being a politician. And rightly, as I think. For I am certain, O men of Athens, that if I had engaged in politics, I should have perished long ago, and done no good either to you or to myself.

And don't be offended at my telling you the truth : for the truth is, that no man who goes to war with you or any other multitude, honestly struggling against the commission of unrighteousness and wrong in the State, will save his life ; he who will really fight for the right, if he would live even for a little while, must have a private station and not a public one.* I can give you as proofs of this, not words only, but deeds, which you value more than words.

Let me tell you a passage of my own life, which will prove to you that I should never hayjg yielded to injustice from any fear of death, and that if I had not yielded I should have died at once. I will tell you a story — tasteless, perhaps, and commonplace, but nevertheless true.

The only office of state which I ever held, O men of Athens, was that of senator^; the tribe Antiochis, which is my •^ Socrates frequently speaks of this sign or voice.* He seems to have regarded it not as a personal divinity, but as a divine influence. •8 Compare Rep. VI., 496. ** At the time of Socrates, Attica, the Athenian State, was divided into ten tribes. The senate consisted of five hundred members, chosen by lot, fifty from each tribe.

" Its sittings became constant, with the exception of special holidays. The year was distributed into ten portions called Firytanies — the fifty senators of each tribe taking by turns the duty of constant attendance during one prytany, and receiving during that time the title of The Prytanes (prjt'a-nez). . . . ^ further subdivision of the prytany into five periods of seven days each, and of the fifty tribe senators into five bodies of ten