Apology

​I do not believe you in this, Meletus, and I think no other human being does either. For either I do not corrupt, or if I do corrupt, it is involuntarily, so that in either case you are lying. And if I corrupt involuntarily, the law does not require you to bring people here for such involuntary errors, but to take them aside privately to instruct and admonish them. For it is clear that if I learn, I shall cease doing what I do involuntarily. But you avoided associating with me and instructing me, and were unwilling to do so, but you bring me here, where the law requires you to bring those who need punishment, not instruction. But indeed, Athenian gentlemen, this is already clear, as I was saying, that Meletus has never cared either much or little about these matters. But tell us nevertheless, Meletus, in what way do you say I corrupt the youth? Is it not clearly, according to the indictment you wrote, by teaching them not to acknowledge the gods whom the state acknowledges, but other new spiritual beings? Do you not say that it is by teaching this that I corrupt them? Meletus: I say this most emphatically. Socrates: Then, Meletus, by these very gods of whom we are now speaking, speak still more clearly both to me and to these gentlemen here. For I cannot understand whether you mean that I teach them to believe that there are some gods—and so I myself believe that there are gods and am not a complete atheist, nor am I in this way unjust, though I do not believe in those whom the state believes in but in others, and this is what you charge me with, that I believe in others—or whether you say that I myself do not believe in gods at all and teach others the same. Meletus: I say that you do not believe in gods at all. Socrates: You amazing Meletus, why do you say this? Do I not even believe that the sun and moon are gods, as other men do? Meletus: No, by Zeus, gentlemen of the jury, since he says the sun is stone and the moon is earth. Socrates: Do you think you are accusing Anaxagoras, my dear Meletus? And do you so despise these men and think them so illiterate as not to know that the books of Anaxagoras of Clazomenae are full of such theories? And indeed, do the youth learn these things from me, which they can occasionally buy for at most a drachma from the orchestra and then laugh at Socrates if he pretends they are his own, especially when they are so bizarre? But, by Zeus, is this how I seem to you? Do I believe in no god at all? Meletus: Indeed not, by Zeus, not in any way whatsoever. Socrates: You are untrustworthy, Meletus, and that too, as it seems to me, even to yourself. For this man seems to me, Athenian gentlemen, to be completely insolent and undisciplined, and to have written this indictment out of sheer insolence, lack of discipline, and youthful rashness.