FRANKNESS 
Where, pray, and when have I insulted you? I have
always consistently admired philosophy and extolled
you and lived on intimate terms with the writings
that you have left behind. These very phrases that
I utter—where else but from you did I get them?
Culling them like a bee, I make my show with them
before men, who applaud and recognize where and


 

from whom and how I gathered each flower; and
although ostensibly it is I whom they admire for the
bouquet, as a matter of fact it is you and your garden,
because you have put forth such blossoms, so gay and
varied in their hues—if one but knows how to select
and interweave and combine them so that they will
not be out of harmony with one another. Would any
man, after receiving this kindly treatment at your
hands,-attempt to speak ill of benefactors to whom
he owes his reputation? Not unless he be like Thamyris or Eurytus in his nature, so as to raise his voice
against the Muses from whom he had the gift of song,
or to match himself against Apollo in archery—and
he the giver of the bow !

 PLATO 
That speech of yours is good rhetoric, my fine
fellow ; but it is directly against your case and only
makes your presumptuousness appear more staggering,
since ingratitude is now added to injustice. For you
got your shafts from us, as you admit, and then turned
them against us, making it your only aim to speak
ill of us all. That is the way you have paid us for
opening that garden to you and not forbidding you
to pick flowers and go away with your arms full.
For that reason, then, above all else, you deserve
to die.

 FRANKNESS 
See! You give me an angry-hearing, and you
reject every just plea! Yet I should never have
supposed that anger could affect. Plato or Chrysippus
or Aristotle or the rest of you; it seemed to me that

 

you, and you alone, were surely far away from anything of that kind. But, however that may be, my
masters, do not put me to death unsentenced and
unheard. This too was once a trait of yours, not to
deal with fellow-citizens on a basis of force and
superior strength, but to settle your differences by
course of law, according, a hearing and in your
turn receiving one. So let us choose a judge, and
then you may bring your complaint either jointly
or through anyone whom you may elect to represent you all; and I will defend.myself against
your charges. Then, if I am proven guilty, and the
court passes that verdict upon me, I will submit, of
course, to the punishment that I deserve, and you
will not have taken it upon yourselves to do anything
high-handed. But if after I have undergone my
investigation I am found innocent and irreproachable,
the jury will discharge me, and you will turn your
anger against those who nave misled you and set
you against me.

 PLATO 
There we have it! “Cavalry into the open,” so that
you may give the slip to the jury and get away. As cavalry seeks open country to maneuvre in, so the lawyer seeks the courtroom. Compare Plato, Theaetetus, 183d: ἱππέας εἰς πεδίον προκαλεῖ, Σωκράτη εἰς λόγους προκαλούμενος. At
any rate, they say that you are an orator and a
lawyer and a wizard at making speeches. And whom
do you wish to be judge, what is more? It must be
someone whom you cannot influence by a bribe, as your
sort often do, to cast an unjust ballot in your favour.
 FRANKNESS 
Do not be alarmed on that score. I should not
care to have any such referee of suspicious or doubtful


 

character, who would sell me his vote. See, for my
part I nominate Philosophy herself to the bench, and
you yourselves also!
 PLATO 
And who can conduct the prosecution if we are
to be jurors ?
 FRANKNESS 
Be prosecutors and jurors at the same time. Even
that arrangement has no terrors for me, since I have
so much the better of you in the justice of my case
and expect to be so over-stocked with pleas.
 PLATO 
What shall we do, Pythagoras and Socrates ?
Really, the man seems to be making a reasonable
request in demanding a trial.
 SOCRATES 
What can we do but go to court, taking Philosophy _
with us, and hear his defence, whatever it may be.
Prejudgment is not our way ; it is terribly unprofessional, characteristic of hot-headed fellows who
hold that might is right. We shall lay ourselves
open to hard words from those who like to deal in
them if we stone a man who has had no opportunity
even to plead his case, especially as we ourselves
maintain that we delight in just dealing. What
could we say of Anytus and Meletus, who prosecuted me, or of the jurors on that occasion, if this
fellow is to die without getting any hearing at all? Literally, "without getting any water at all"; i.e. any of the time ordinarily allowed for court speeches, which was apportioned with a water-clock. 
 PLATO 
Excellent advice, Socrates; so let us go and get
Philosophy. She shall judge, and we shall be content
with her decision, whatever it may be.