SOCRATES: Really? I'm convinced you've done much already. ANITUS: Listen. Your situation is more dangerous than you think. It goes to your life. SOCRATES: Then it's a question of a little thing. ANITUS: It's little to your intrepid and sublime soul. To the eyes of those who cherish, as I do, your virtue, it's everything. Believe me, with whatever philosophy your souls may be armed, it is hard to perish by execution. That's not all: your reputation which must be dear to you will be tarnished throughout the centuries. Not only will all the bigots laugh over your death, they will insult you, light the pyre on which you will burn if they burn you, tighten the rope if they strangle you, grind the Hemlock if they poison you. But they will render your memory execrable to the entire future. You can easily avoid such a funereal end. I will answer for saving your life, and even will have you declared by the judges to be the wisest of men, as you were by the oracle of Apollo. It's only a question of giving me your pupil Aglaea. With the dowry you are giving her, understood. We can easily break off her marriage with Sophronine. You will enjoy a peaceable and honorable old age and the gods and goddesses will bless you. SOCRATES: Guards! Take me to prison without further delay. (They lead him away.) ANITUS: This man is incorrigible. It's not my fault. I have nothing to reproach myself with. He must be abandoned to his reprobate opinions and allowed to die unrepentant. CURTAIN ACT III (The Judges are seated on a tribunal. Socrates is standing.) A JUDGE: (to Anitus) You mustn't sit here. You are a priest of Ceres. ANITUS: I am only here for edification. MELITUS: Silence. Listen, Socrates, you are accused of being a bad citizen; of corrupting the youth; of denying the plurality of the gods; of being a heretic, deist, atheist. Answer. SOCRATES: Athenian Judges, I exhort you always to be good citizens as I have always tried to be. To shed your blood for the country as I have done in more than one battle. Regarding the youth of which you speak, do not cease to guide them through your admonitions, and especially by your examples; teach them to love true virtue, and to flee the wretched philosophy of the school; the article of the plurality of the gods is a bit difficult to discuss, but you will easily understand me. Athenian Judges, there is only one God. MELITUS AND ANOTHER JUDGE: Oh, the knave.