Gorgias

​SOCRATES: Consider then, what such a man, caught among these children, would say in his defense, if someone accused him, saying: “O children, this man has worked many evils upon you, even upon yourselves, and he ruins the youngest of you by cutting and burning, and by starving and choking them he makes them utterly helpless, giving them most bitter potions and forcing them to hunger and thirst, not like me who used to feast you on many pleasant things of all kinds!” What do you think a doctor caught in such an evil plight would have to say? Or if he should speak the truth, that “All these things I did, children, for your health,” how much of a shout do you think such judges would raise? Would it not be great? CALLICLES: Perhaps; one must certainly think so. SOCRATES: Do you not think, then, that he would be held in utter helplessness as to what he ought to say? CALLICLES: Quite so. SOCRATES: Such, however, I well know is the experience I would suffer on entering court. For I shall not have any pleasures to tell them which I have provided, which they regard as benefits and services, though I envy neither those who provide them nor those for whom they are provided; and if anyone claims that I corrupt the younger men by making them helpless, or abuse the older men by speaking bitter words either privately or publicly, I shall neither be able to speak the truth, that “Justly do I say all these things, and I do this which is indeed your business, gentlemen of the jury,” nor anything else. So I shall suffer, perhaps, whatever happens to turn up. CALLICLES: Does a man, then, seem to you, Socrates, to be in a fine state in a city, when he is in such a condition and unable to help himself? SOCRATES: Yes, Callicles, if that one thing indeed belonged to him, which you have often admitted: if he had helped himself by having neither said nor done anything unjust either towards men or towards gods. For this kind of helping oneself has often been admitted by us to be the best. If, therefore, someone should convict me of being unable to render this help to myself and to another, I should be ashamed, whether convicted before many or before few, or alone by one other; and if I should die because of this inability, I should be annoyed. But if I should come to my end through a lack of flattering rhetoric, I know well that you would easily see me bearing death. For no one fears dying itself, who is not utterly irrational and cowardly, but he fears doing injustice; for to arrive in Hades with a soul packed full of many injustices is the ultimate of all evils. If you wish, I am willing to tell you a story, to show that this is so. CALLICLES: Well, since you have finished the other things, finish this too.